What If I Stumble
by gf7
Summary: Conclusion to the Survivor series. The Birds collide with the Joker in the battle for Helena's body and soul. Finale Added June 28, 2004
1. 1

Title: What If I Stumble?  
  
Author: Shawn Carter  
  
Email: wolfpackproductionscomcast.net  
  
Website: Eventually. I'm working on it.  
  
Feedback: Always appreciated.  
  
Rating: Let's go with an R to NC-17 rating on this one. Adult situations. Suggestive dialogue. Language. Violence of both the physical and sexual nature.  
  
Disclaimer: Tollin/Robbins created this fantastic show. The WB screwed it. Summary: As things finally start to come together, the team learns that they are not yet out of the woods. The Joker makes a final stand that could have deadly implications.  
  
Notes: This takes place obviously instead of Feat of Clay and Devil's Eyes. I am incorporating a few comic characters. They are DC characters. Apparently there was a producer interview where it was said that BOP occurs in a timeline ten years ahead of SMALLVILLE. Thus any half-assed throwaway comments about Superman can be attributed to that.  
  
Additional Notes: This is the final long story in this saga. I would DEEPLY advise getting caught up or reading the previous stories if you never have before you begin or you might be lost. In any case, sorry it took so long. Unfortunately life and work interfered. Now that both have settled back in to a steady rhythm I hope to come back with some degree of force.  
  
Here's the story order along with some links to help get you caught up if needed. Please keep in mind that the stories weren't necessarily written in this order but reading them like so might help with future events. Also, they will all eventually go through a full re-edit and I'll probably reconstruct the actual HTML code- I know some of the fonts are too large but I just wanted to get 'em up.  
  
Everybody View From In To Be Devil You Path of If I Stumble?  
  
        You're reading it mate.  
  
Music Notes: The title and lyrics are DC Talk and the Eagles.  
  
Further: As always fanfic.net screws up my periods and commas. Sorry.  
  
"What if I stumble, what if I fall?   
What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?   
Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl?   
What if I stumble, and what if I fall?"  
  
"Lighten up while you still can  
Don't even try to understand   
Just find a place to make your stand  
And take it easy"

* * *

He paced about anxiously, his hand pressing his miniscule cellular phone to his ear. Dust kicked up beneath his boots but quickly settled. He used his free hand to pull his jacket tighter around his torso. His fingers trembled a bit, catching on one of the buttons.  
  
"So she's awake?" Detective Jesse Reese asked as he stared down at the black asphalt of the street in front of him. The night was icy and cold around him but the cops were out in force. There had to be twenty uniforms and a handful of shields milling around.  
  
He of course was on paid medical leave and no one save McNally seemed happy to see him there. After he had gathered some cursory facts about the latest victim of the creature, he had slipped into the alley so that he could get an update on the brunette crime fighter that try as he might, he just couldn't get out of his head. She had been drawn into some new disturbed mind-game that the Joker had devised. Luckily, her family was equally resourceful and they had gone in and pulled her out of his sick and twisted la-la land.  
  
"She just woke up," Dinah told him. She yawned but quickly caught herself. "I think she's pretty confused. He's been messing with her head for so long that she's not sure what's up or down. Barbara is trying to bring her up to speed."  
  
"I'll be over shortly," Reese said quickly. He sighed as he watched the crime scene. The kids that were trying to gather evidence seemed like they were already clueless. He heard the coroner suggest that maybe a wolf had climbed three stories into a locked apartment and torn the victim to pieces.  
  
Crazy shit. Typical New Gotham police work.  
  
"Reese?" Dinah asked suddenly, drawing him out of his thoughts.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Can you do me a favor?" Dinah asked.  
  
He nodded slowly. This was the girl who had risked her own life to save Helena's. He was now indebted to her. Even if he wasn't sure exactly why just yet. "Anything."  
  
"Can you stop on the way here and get me some McDonalds?"  
  
Reese laughed. Still a kid. "Sure," he replied. "No problem."  
  
"So what's to stop him from just dragging me back into that world?" Helena asked. "I mean, if I had died in there..."  
  
Barbara placed a hand on her arm. "You didn't though. And we're working on the other part. I still don't know exactly how he's gaining access to your dreams."  
  
Helena shook her head. "Crazy. I don't understand exactly. I can't remember much of it but what I do...Barbara...it was so real."  
  
"It was meant to be. It felt real for Dinah as well."  
  
"I know," Helena mumbled. She was once again sitting in the oversized leather recliner on the balcony. Dinah was leaning against the door and Barbara was seated in her omnipresent wheelchair. She shifted slightly and felt a sudden strong surge of pain rip upwards from her legs.  
  
She sighed in relief.  
  
"What?" Barbara asked with curiosity.  
  
"My legs. They hurt. My legs hurt."  
  
"Do you want some..."  
  
"No. God, no. I never thought I'd be so happy to actually be in pain." She reached down and touched one of her bandaged limbs. "They remind me I'm still here. This is real. I...I need that."  
  
And she did. Over the course of less than three days, the Joker had nearly broken her will. He had drawn her into some strange bizarro universe where she had been put on trial and sentenced to death. He had almost even convinced her that the world would be a better place without her.  
  
Almost. And so damn close.  
  
"I know," Barbara said with more than a hint of sadness. "I let you down."  
  
"Bullshit," Helena replied, blinking. "You have never let me down. We...we just haven't figured everything out yet. Right?" There was more than a hint of desperation in her voice.  
  
"Right," Dinah replied, moving to crouch between them. "But how do we keep her from dazing out again?" She very lightly touched the arm of the chair, being careful not to graze Helena's hand.  
  
"That's where you come in," Barbara said, watching the young blonde closely. They had already asked for so much from the young telepath. And she had come through in a massive way. Suffice it to say, Dinah had completely earned her keep. Not like she ever needed to. She was family.  
  
"What do you mean?" Dinah inquired, more than a slight hint of panic in her voice. After all that she had seen in Helena's mind, she wasn't exactly eager to make a return trip. That said; she'd do it again in a heartbeat if that was what was necessary to protect Helena.  
  
"I think it may be time to take your mental powers to the next level," Barbara said cautiously. She watched Dinah carefully, searching her eyes for fear. She saw plenty of it but decided to dismiss it as understandable.  
  
Dinah shook her head. "I don't understand."  
  
"Neither do I," Helena admitted. "Not that that is unusual with you, Gordon."  
  
Barbara favored her with a bemused grin. Then she turned her attention back to Dinah. "We need you to construct a mental wall around Helena's mind."  
  
"Oh," Dinah said, her voice squeaking a bit. "Is that all? I thought you had a real challenge."  
  
Barbara touched her shoulder. "After what you've already done today and the courage that you've shown, this shouldn't be a problem at all. You'll do just fine."  
  
The only response Dinah had was to swallow.  
  
Hard.  
  
"So, how does this work?" Helena asked, gazing up at Barbara and Dinah. She was still seated in the leather recliner but they had moved everything into the relatively warm sanctuary of the living room of the Clocktower. "I mean, do we do like a Vulcan mind-meld?"  
  
Barbara considered Helena's words for a moment and then finally shook her head in the negative. "Not exactly."  
  
"Well then how exactly because I can't say as that I'm all that eager to have anyone else playing around in my head," Helena insisted. "One maniac is quite enough for one day." She glanced over at Dinah. "No offense."  
  
"Of course," Dinah said, barely paying attention. She was deep in thought, wondering just how badly she was going to screw up her best friends' head. And knowing full well that before she started, she had to find the inner courage to do what had to be done or all was lost. She had to find a way to dip back in the desperate darkness that was Helena's mind. The first trip had been terrifying.  
  
"So, what's the how?" Helena demanded.  
  
"The dumbed down version?" Barbara asked with a hint of an amused smile.  
  
Helena tossed her an irritated look. "Yes and thank you so much for calling it that. You ever wonder why I flunked half of my classes?"  
  
"You were drinking and partying too much?" Barbara replied. "Not to mention the boys..."  
  
Helena snorted. "Well I'm sure that's partly true as well..."  
  
"Which sounds like a great story for later," Dinah cut in. She was shifting nervously from foot to foot. "But I'm already a bit freaked. If we wait for too much longer, I might lose my nerve completely."  
  
"Okay," Barbara said nodding. "The basic premise is that Dinah will enter your mind and create a protective wall around your psyche. Like a firewall."  
  
"I have no idea what that means," Helena replied with an annoyed sigh.  
  
"It's what I use on the computers to keep you from downloading your porn movies."  
  
"You like porn? I thought that was a guy thing," Dinah said, a bit of the fear draining away as she gazed at Helena with naked amazement.  
  
"One time and it was for a school project. She'll never let me forget it," Helena replied quickly. She tossed off a quick wink in Dinah's direction. "Personally I think Barbara was just jealous. It was pretty hot shit."  
  
Barbara snorted. "No comment."  
  
Helena shot her a look but chose to change the subject. "Okay so she's creating this firewall in my head which should keep the Joker out. But for how long?"  
  
"Well that's just it; we don't know."  
  
"Wonderful," Helena sighed. She settled back into the chair and closed her eyes. As if she was praying for strength and control.  
  
"Which means that as soon as you've been protected..."  
  
"It's clown hunting season," Helena said dryly. Barbara searched her young charge for even the slightest hint of humor but all she saw was an icy cold resolve. Involuntarily, Barbara shivered a bit.  
  
"Right," Barbara mumbled. She tried to lock eyes with her but Helena quickly evaded her. The woman known as Oracle frowned. "We don't kill."  
  
Helena rolled her eyes. "Let's not go there."  
  
And there it was again; that same suffocating twisting darkness that was always nearby. Always just waiting for the right opportunity to swallow Helena whole.  
  
Barbara nodded slowly but that didn't make the dread in her gut vanish. Something was telling her that this story wasn't likely to have an easy or quick ending.  
  
"Okay," Dinah said, bouncing a bit. "How do I start?" Her eyes were locked on Helena but she was speaking to Barbara.  
  
Oracle spun her chair towards the blonde, insanely relieved to have anything to think about besides Helena's intentions towards the Joker. She'd deal with that later when it became imminent. For now, getting the so- called firewall up and blazing was far more important.  
  
And absolutely imperative to their success.  
  
Not to mention survival.  
  
Barbara Gordon sighed loudly, her exhaustion obvious. "Carefully," she finally replied softly. "It's the only way."  
  
Helena snorted. "Not my way."  
  
He entered the Clocktower at just after two in the afternoon. As the elevator rose up towards the control room, he wondered if everyone would still be sleeping. He tapped his watch and sighed.  
  
He had meant to return hours earlier but the investigation into the corpse had delayed him. That and he had actually allowed his eyes to droop for a few minutes. By the time he had come back around, it had been several hours later.  
  
The doors slid open and he stepped into the large room. The air smelled clean and crisp, like the doors to the outside had been open all night.  
  
"Huntress? Helena?" He tried both names out on his lips and found that both stirred him.  
  
"I believe they are in the living room, sir."  
  
Reese turned and smiled at the old butler. Alfred Pennyworth. His police file said that he had formerly worked with Bruce Wayne of Wayne Industries. How he had come to work for Barbara Gordon wasn't exactly clear but his loyalty was. "Thanks. That way?" He pointed towards the stairs that led to the catwalk.  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
Reese turned to say something else but stopped when he realized that the butler had already vanished into thin air. He chuckled a bit and then headed towards the stairs.  
  
The living room was apparently on the upper level and next to the training room. He hadn't quite fully figured out the layout of the Clocktower just yet but from what he could gather, none of it made a bit of sense. Rooms were just anywhere and everywhere.  
  
"Reese," Helena said, looking up at him from the recliner. She looked tired but she was smiling.  
  
"Welcome back to the waking world," he said with a smirk. "Again."  
  
"Back for good this time," Helena reassured him. Then she looked at Barbara. "So does this mean she has free access to my head?"  
  
"I had free access," Dinah corrected. "It was scary." She was trying to make it a joke but it was anything but. If you liked darkly naked places that felt like utter desperation, well then Helena's head was an ideal vacation spot.  
  
Barbara shot the young telepath a warning look. "It's just a protective wall."  
  
"A protective wall?" Reese queried. "What are we talking about?" He crouched down next to Helena's chair. He reached out and squeezed her hand. She grinned seductively down at him.  
  
Helena sighed like she was humoring him. "In order to keep the big nasty out of my skull, Dinah went in and created a firewall in there all the while snooping around for Barbara."  
  
"That's not true," Barbara protested.  
  
"Which part?" Helena cracked. Then she waved her hand dismissively. "Doesn't matter. My brain is a lockbox."  
  
"No it's not," Dinah said with a short smile. When Helena glared at her, she just grinned in response. Better to make a joke of it than to actually let Helena think that some of her secrets had been exposed to air.  
  
"Okay, so we have Norton's Utilities in Helena's brain...will that actually help?" Reese queried.  
  
"More like Dinah's Utilities," Barbara corrected.  
  
"Who? What? Utilities?" Helena demanded, looking confused. Dinah just blushed and looked away.  
  
"It's computer software that has a firewall in it," Barbara said quickly. She knew that her young charge had absolutely no interest in what she was saying so it made little sense to draw out the explanation.  
  
"Oh." She glanced up at Reese. "You're a computer geek too?"  
  
"You sound upset," he noted.  
  
"You have no idea how much babble I have to put with because of Barbara and her precious babies. And by babies I mean her computers."  
  
"That's a little overdramatic," Barbara insisted.  
  
"No it's not," Dinah said for the second time. She was grinning fully now.  
  
"I can build a computer but I'm not a geek," Reese put in.  
  
"You shouldn't be ashamed," Barbara said, still glaring at Helena.  
  
"Yes you should," Helena laughed. She wrinkled her nose again. "But I'll forgive you this time as long as you promise to never again reference computer programs and my head in the same sentence."  
  
"Deal," he grinned. The he turned back to Barbara. "So is she safe?"  
  
"For now. But who knows how long it will take him to break down the wall."  
  
"Are we sure he can?" Helena asked, the humor now drained away. There was an almost frantic and desperate edge in her voice. She had been invaded once and it had nearly destroyed her. A second time would likely kill her.  
  
Barbara shook her head. "No. No, of course not. But I'm not willing to take that risk."  
  
"That's all fine and dandy but how do we get to him to stop him?" Helena exclaimed. "Reese had to pull every string he had..."  
  
"And then some," Reese inserted.  
  
She glared at him but continued, "Just to get me ten minutes with him. And I was watched like a goddamn hawk."  
  
"And after the stunt she pulled where she tried to attack him, I doubt they're going to let her in for an encore performance," Reese added.  
  
"Wait a minute," Barbara said, spinning in her chair to face Reese. "You said he touched her and you thought that he did something. Do you recall what?"  
  
He shook his head like he was trying to remember what had occurred in that room. It had only happened hours earlier but his memory already seemed foggy. "He reached across and touched her hand..."  
  
"I don't remember," Helena said with a frown. She looked up at Barbara. "I remember jumping across the table and Reese grabbing me..." she turned her gaze on him. "And by the way you coped a very cheap feel-up there."  
  
Reese just grinned but wisely held his tongue.  
  
"Go on," Barbara prompted, shaking her head in exasperation. Getting Helena to relay a story was always a time consuming endeavor.  
  
"He pulled me back and then nothing. I don't recall what happened after that until I woke up here a few hours ago."  
  
"He touched her hand. A few minutes later she was catatonic," Reese filled in. "Then you agree with what I said earlier? You think he did something to her." It was a statement not a question.  
  
"I don't know. The Joker doesn't have any actual powers. He's not a meta. He's just...different."  
  
"The guy has green hair and a white face. That's not normal human shit."  
  
"It's a very long story," Barbara sighed. "There's acid involved and it can wait for another time."  
  
"Sure," Reese said nodding. Then he glanced at Helena who was glaring at him. "I didn't mean any offense. Why are you so damn sensitive about this whole meta thing?"  
  
She sighed. "Forget it. It's not important."  
  
"No, it is," he insisted. "You're the one who told me that metas and humans are different. Humans don't generally have superpowers, right?"  
  
"Right," Helena agreed, looking irritated. She had the sense that she was about to be talked down by the handsome cop and it rather annoyed her. She hated when someone else was right. It was bad enough having to put up with Barbara and her oversized brain but she had figured that she might have had the upper hand on Reese at the very least.  
  
"So when I say that green hair ain't exactly human, how am I insulting you?"  
  
"You're not," Helena admitted. "I'm sorry. I'm just on edge."  
  
"Well you need to get off your edge. You're safe now."  
  
She snorted. "I've heard that before and oh look how this saga continues to go on. And on."  
  
"Then I guess we deal," Reese said. "And you toughen up."  
  
"Okay, what the hell are you talking about?"  
  
"You're the one letting this guy screw around with you," Reese taunted. His eyes were locked on hers.  
  
Hers were in turn snapping blue fire. "I didn't let anyone do anything to me. In case you didn't notice, the guy took a sledgehammer to my legs."  
  
"The guy shot me in the stomach and carved his initials into my side," Reese replied. He took a step towards her and placed a palm on her cheek. With his thumb he scratched lightly at the faded scar on her skin. The one that looked like a sloppy J. "So we deal."  
  
They were looking at each other with a breathless intensity. Barbara shivered a bit as she recalled the feeling. There had many a moment when her feelings for Dick Grayson had left her stumbling for solid ground.  
  
"Okay, Detective, then why don't you tell me what your wonderful plan is? You know the one where we stop the Joker from trying to kill me."  
  
"I guess that all depends," Reese said softly.  
  
"On what?"  
  
"On whether you're ready to start fighting back."  
  
"I've been fighting back," she protested.  
  
"You've been lying down and letting him fuck with you. He's pretty much had his way with you." He tapped her head. "He's so far in here that he owns you."  
  
She shook a bit and then recoiled from the touch. "He's not," she said weakly. Suffice it to say, her words weren't terribly convincing.  
  
"Reese," Barbara said softly. She wheeled her chair over towards them. "Maybe that's enough for tonight."  
  
Reese turned on her, amazement in his eyes. "You know we don't have a chance if she doesn't fight back. Why are you coddling her?"  
  
"I'm not," Barbara insisted. "But she's been through a terrible ordeal."  
  
"I remember," he told her. "I carried her out of that building." He looked back at Helena. "It scared the hell out of me." He paused for effect. "This scares me worse. I've never thought you couldn't beat anyone. Since the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were the toughest person that I had ever met. You could kick anyone's ass and do it with a stupid saying on your lips..."  
  
"They're called quips," Helena put in dryly, her eyes still locked on Reese's. She had tried to break contact but try as she might, she found herself utterly lost in him.  
  
He ignored her. "Now, I don't think there's a chance in the world that you could beat him. I don't think you could beat anyone. And I'm not talking your legs. I know those will take time to heal. I'm talking anything. You're weak."  
  
She reached across and hit him. Hard and with as much force as she could put behind her fist.  
  
"Helena, no!" Barbara cried out, seeing the sudden movement by her angry young protégé. Dinah jerked forward as if to intercede.  
  
It was far too late. Reese spun back and hit the ground. His hand went immediately up to his torn lip and he wiped blood away. He gazed upwards with a strange look in his eyes. It almost looked like relief.  
  
"Reese," Helena started. "Jesse..."  
  
"There," he said, his lip already swelling. "That's fight. Now try putting that towards your enemies."  
  
"I'm sorry," she said.  
  
"Don't be," he replied, standing up. He waved off Dinah who had taken a step towards him. He stood up and looked at Helena. "I like the fight in you." He paused, feeling a bit nervous. "It's what draws me to you."  
  
"What are you saying Reese?"  
  
"I'm saying that if you were just any girl, if you were just any human, I might not have run as fast that night to get to you."  
  
"That a lie," she replied dryly. "You're Dudley Fucking Do-Right. You'd have come running for anyone."  
  
He sighed. "Fine. But I wouldn't have needed to get there as badly. Do you understand that at least?"  
  
She nodded slowly. "I think so." She had the sense of mind to feel a bit unnerved by her audience but couldn't seem to care. Their eyes were locked hard on each other and so much was passing between them. So much was being said without words.  
  
"Intense," Dinah said under her breath. She was watching the twosome gaze at each other with a passion that seemed to swallow the room. Maybe they were confused about their feelings for each other but no one else was. The young blonde swallowed hard and remembered a warning she had received earlier in the night about getting too close to Helena. Getting too far inside.  
  
It was bound to be a hell of a ride and it didn't exactly guarantee a smooth departure or a successful landing. In fact, it almost promised neither.  
  
But it would certainly be worth writing home about.  
  
"Good," Reese said. Then he looked at Barbara. "So tell me then, how do we bring the fight to him?"  
  
"Hypnosis? Do you think that's a good idea?" Dick Grayson asked, his voice crackling over the phone line. He sounded tired and hassled, like it had been a terribly long shift. Just the same, he was apparently relieved to hear her voice. This was the first time they had spoken since he had returned to Bludhaven. Inwardly she made a vow to call him just to talk after this whole thing had been put behind them.  
  
"No," Barbara Gordon admitted. "But the Joker's not a natural telepath so he has to have gotten into her head someway or another. We need to know how."  
  
"I guess I'm more worried about what you don't want to find in there," Dick cracked. "How's the kid holding up?"  
  
"Considering all that she's been through?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Fine, I guess. I didn't see that dream world she was in but Helena's had someone try to mess with her head before and she beat him back. This was apparently too real for her."  
  
"Your mind can sometimes be your worst enemy," Dick said with a sigh. "It was Bruce's."  
  
"That's true," Barbara admitted. "Sometimes I wonder if she's too much like her father. She's got Selena's wildness but all of his inner turmoil. She always seems like she's so drawn to the edge of the cliff."  
  
"Like she's just looking for a reason to jump?"  
  
"Great, now I'm suicidal," Helena snorted as she entered the room. She was wobbling but she was still walking, putting just a bit of pressure on her wounded legs.  
  
"Helena, I really think you should use the cane," Barbara insisted.  
  
The brunette snorted. A few days earlier Barbara had offered her a walking cane, like the kind old rich men used to look important. She had told her young charge that it would help her movement and keep her from putting too much weight on her injured legs. Helena had roundly defeated the idea. She wasn't about to ruin the fashion statement with an ensemble piece that just didn't fit. Or something like that. Mostly though it was pride. Using a cane meant that she had been hurt badly enough to not be able to stand on her own. That just didn't work for her.  
  
"Hello Dick," Helena said, turning towards the monitor.  
  
"Helena," he said warmly. "How are you?"  
  
"Not suicidal," she cracked. "But thanks for caring so much big brother."  
  
"You know I do," he replied. "And no offense was meant by what we were saying."  
  
"You know," she said sighing. "I think I've already been insulted enough for one day. Called weak and now suicidal. I think I'm going to find a nice warm bed and I'm gonna test out my new firewall."  
  
"Goodnight, Helena."  
  
"Dick," she drawled. She tossed an annoyed look at Barbara and then wobbled from the room. She was immediately met at the door by Dinah who slid an arm around her and helped her towards the bedroom. Reese was standing a few feet away, watching with concern.  
  
"She's certainly in a good mood," Dick said. "Injuries?"  
  
Barbara laughed. "No, she's always in that mood."  
  
"Lovely. Okay then, you're sure about this?"  
  
"No," Barbara admitted. "Not at all. But I don't know what else to do."  
  
"It's you, Babs. You're doing the right thing," he assured her.  
  
She closed her eyes and let his words wash over her. "Thank you," she said. "I needed that."  
  
END CHAPTER 1- 


	2. 2

"There was another killing," Reese said, leaning over the table. He yawned as he moved and his body made several loud cracking and popping noises. He rather impolitely told it to shut up.  
  
"Same creature?" Barbara asked, bringing up the police reports. She frowned. "Same creature."  
  
"Is it real?" Reese said suddenly. "I mean didn't the Joker tell Helena that she had created it?" He shook his head. "Of course it's real; I saw the body of the guy it maimed."  
  
"I think the Joker was just trying to make Helena question reality," Barbara put in. "Because this thing is definitely real."  
  
"So can we stop it with bullets?"  
  
She nodded slowly. "Yes." She turned towards him. "I ran one of the blood samples that we were able to get off one of his victims. He's not a meta but he is a mutate. Like a wolf and a man."  
  
"Like a werewolf? I mean are we going to need silver bullets?"  
  
"Possibly," she said, sounding skeptical. "However whatever he is, one of his powers isn't a protective shield of any type. He's primarily a hunter but his skin is soft and vulnerable to attack. And by the by, silver bullets are just a bad myth. If you shoot it in the heart, it's still dead."  
  
"Thanks for the Brothers Grimm update. Okay then, so I go get him," Reese said. He reached across to the table where he had placed his holster. He had taken it off as a sign of respect to Barbara who hadn't seemed terribly fond of the weapon. And considering what had happened to her, well then that certainly made sense.  
  
"I'm coming with you," Dinah said. She leapt to her feet. She felt the need to move, to get her blood pumping again. Being so close to all of the pain and fear circulating around in the Clocktower was making her feel like four walls were moving in on her.  
  
Reese looked up and shook his head. "No, you need to be here with Helena in case she needs you."  
  
"There's nothing else I can do," Dinah replied with more than a hint of bitter sadness, She looked at Barbara. "Right? Either the wall works or it doesn't."  
  
"That's true," Barbara admitted. She locked eyes with Dinah and offered her an understanding look. She could see the confusion creased into the blonde's brow.  
  
"Well don't you need her for the hypnosis?"  
  
"Careful Detective or I'd think you don't want me around," Dinah said dryly.  
  
"No," he said quickly. "That's not it. I just..."  
  
"And we will," Barbara said softly. "But you're still wounded and really in no condition to be taking on this thing by yourself. Accept the help, Reese." She shook her head. "You and Helena are more similar than you might like to admit. Both too stubborn for your own damn good."  
  
He sighed and blew out air between his teeth. "Fine."  
  
Dinah smiled. "Then it's settled then."  
  
"Hey wait though," Reese said suddenly. "So you don't you need her for the hypnosis then? At all?"  
  
"No," Barbara said. "I can do that part. That's more method than it is mind. I've done it before."  
  
Dinah lifted an eyebrow. "Sounds like another interesting story. I'm keeping track."  
  
"So am I," Reese put in dryly. Then he glanced at Dinah. "Okay then, saddle up."  
  
"Ready to rock," she answered.  
  
"Good luck you two," Barbara said softly. "And hopefully by the time you get back, I'll have some answers."  
  
"Does that mean you'll be off comm?" Dinah asked, a slight edge of panic in her voice.  
  
"I'll have you on the speakers but I won't be in the control room so if something happens, Alfred will have to alert me. I need perfect silence. Any distraction could keep Helena from settling into the right state. And God knows it's already difficult enough."  
  
"Nothing will happen," Reese reassured her. He reached out and touched Dinah's elbow. "Come on."  
  
Dinah nodded at him and then followed him out the door. Barbara dropped her head. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Be careful," she whispered into the cool air of the room. "God, be careful."  
  
Alex Tzechovia was the kind of guy who liked to dance in front of his mirror. He was thirty-three and perpetually single but he enjoyed the time that he spent talking to his friends on the computer and playing the game he affectionately called Evercrack. The people who had created it called it Everquest but it was all really just the same thing. Hours spent in front of his P4 trying to get even cooler weapons and more impressive powers.  
  
Alex also liked to sing. The fact that he was rather hideous at it was simply no deterrent. He would gaze into his bathroom mirror for a long minute, envisioning himself as some sort of music god and then he would break wildly into song. He was a big fan of Ricky Martin so swishing his butt around was also a necessity.  
  
However on the night in which he looked into the mirror and saw the bloodied muzzle of the ugliest creature he had ever laid eyes on starring back at him, he swore to give up music.  
  
And then he screamed.  
  
The creature lunged at him and managed to catch the tale of his shirt. It stretched the white fabric until it ripped and sent Alex spinning to the ground. He turned and starred up into the inhuman eyes of the monster.  
  
"Please, no," he said, shaking. His mind whirled as he tried to remember if he had any weapons in his apartment.  
  
The creature lurched forward, its jaws wide open and dripping saliva.  
  
And then he heard three gunshots. Bang. Bang. Bang. One right after another. He sealed his eyelids together and waited for the end. When after almost a minute all he heard was silence, he finally opened his eyes.  
  
"Hello?" he said weakly, looking up and into the eyes of the dark man who was holding a gun.  
  
"Detective Reese," the man said, extending a hand. "Gotham PD." He pointed to the blonde next to him. "This is Dinah." He noticed that the door to his apartment was swinging wide open behind the new twosome.  
  
"Is it dead?" Alex asked, staring at the furry body on the ground. His eyes lit briefly on the blonde standing next to the cop and he frowned, wondering why a civilian had been brought to a crime scene. The thought was fleeting however as his fear retook him.  
  
"Yes, I think so," Reese replied, following his gaze. Dinah moved off and started to gaze into rooms, like she was looking for some type of clue as to why the creature had attacked this man.  
  
"How? How did you know and what the hell is that thing?" Alex asked. Then he tilted his head. "Am I even awake?" He pinched himself hard and then squealed at the pain.  
  
"Yes," Reese said with a chuckle. "I saw it enter your window. You really should shut it at night. New Gotham is not always the safest of places."  
  
Alex nodded. "Getting that." He stared down at the body. "Uh, Detective?"  
  
"Yeah?" Reese asked, looking around the apartment. He was taking in all of the action figures and models that were scattered about. This guy was serious nerd material. He smiled a bit when he saw several discarded empty pizza boxes.  
  
"I think it's moving," Alex said, moving behind Reese.  
  
"Reese!" Dinah screamed suddenly.  
  
He turned and felt the creature barrel into his chest. One of its long talons tore through his shirt and took a large hunk of flesh from his abdomen. He cried out in pain and tried to shove it off. The creature, obviously very hurt, continued to tear. He felt it cut towards his stitches. The doctors were going to be very pissed and so much for getting back on duty anytime soon.  
  
"Little help here," Reese called out, just barely dodging a blow that would have likely decapitated him. "Good God, fuck this hurts." He hissed in pain and then reached up to try to put his hands around the things' throat. All he felt was a tangle of sticky fur.  
  
"I'm trying," Dinah exclaimed, her voice shaky. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring directly at the creature, trying to muster up her powers. A moment later, the monster was thrown into the glass mirror. It howled and then collapsed again. She blinked, suddenly very afraid of the force of the powers within her. They had grown so strong so quickly. It felt fantastic but it also terrified her. She wondered idly if Helena felt the same way about her powers.  
  
Reese pushed himself to his feet, both his chest and his face torn up. Blood streaked down him and was pooling around his leather boots. He reached down and picked up the service pistol that had been knocked from his hand when he had been attacked. He checked the bullets to make sure they were still in place. Each of them was gleaming brightly. A shiny perfect silver.  
  
"What the hell is it?" Reese asked, moving towards it.  
  
The creature was on the ground, howling in agony. It looked up at Reese and the young cop searched its eyes for humanity. All he saw was pain. And fear. God, so much of that.  
  
"Werewolves aren't real, right?" he asked suddenly. His brow creased as he stared at the creature. Something tickled his mind and refused to let go.  
  
Dinah shrugged. "You'd have to ask Barbara."  
  
"I did. She said she didn't think they were." He paused for a moment. "Can you save one? I mean, make it human again?"  
  
The creature lunged forward and grabbed at him, its jaws wide. Reese fired three times and then fell backwards, bowled over by the strength of the attack. He cursed as he hit the ground with a loud thud. His side exploded in agony and he felt the rest of the stitches break open.  
  
"Oh Reese," Dinah said, sadness in her voice.  
  
"What?" he asked, still staring up at the ceiling. He hissed in pain as he tried to move.  
  
"He's dead now," Dinah told him. She moved over to the corpse and turned the body over. "And no, apparently you can't save one." She reached out and ran her fingers over its eyes.  
  
Reese finally found his footing. With a grunt of pain, he moved over towards where Dinah was crouched. He bent down beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said.  
  
He dropped his eyes and followed her gaze, as she looked upon the corpse of a young man, no more than twenty, who was lying in a gory pool of his own blood.  
  
She shook her head. "Sometimes I hate this job."  
  
"Okay, let's go back a few weeks. Let's go back to the day before you were kidnapped. What do you remember?" Barbara prompted. She was leaning forward in her chair, gazing directly into the wide blue eyes of her young charge.  
  
"When?" Helena drawled, sounding almost drugged. She had placed Helena into a very light trance so that she could just access the very top layer of the girls' mind. Going any deeper would be hazardous to everyone's health and mental well-being.  
  
"Let's go over the full day. From when you woke up until when you went to bed."  
  
"I woke up at my apartment. I showered. I broke my nozzle again. Soaked my bathroom. Leonard's gonna be pissed."  
  
Barbara smiled. "Okay, about what time was that?"  
  
"Noon."  
  
"That's about right," Barbara said dryly. "Okay, then what did you do?"  
  
"I went to the Clocktower to check in. You were already at school and so was Dinah. So I went over to check out all of the activity logs."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I wanted to see what was going on that you weren't going to tell me," Helena replied. Her voice sounded so drugged and out of it, a side effect of the hypnosis.  
  
Barbara considered scolding Helena for her intrusion but decided that it was pointless. Especially in a hypnotic state. That said, it did pass her mind to plant a suggestion that would keep Huntress out of her files. Reluctantly she decided against it. It probably wasn't the best idea in the world to add to Helena's mental issues.  
  
"Okay. How long did you stay there?"  
  
"I had Alfred make lunch for me. I stayed until about three and then I went to see Dr. Quinzell."  
  
"Scheduled appointment?"  
  
"No. My usual appointment would have been on the following day but she called to say that she had a conference to go then and that she had a spot for me if I would like to come in immediately. There was nothing else going on so I said sure."  
  
"Okay," Barbara said thoughtfully. She had never pressed Helena about what she talked about in her counseling sessions no matter her curiosity. She was extremely hesitant to start doing so now. "Did anything strange happen there?"  
  
"I don't remember," Helena replied, eyes still staring straight forward.  
  
Barbara blinked. "What do you mean you don't remember?"  
  
"I walked in and sat down. She told me were going to try a relaxation method. I must have dozed off. When I woke up, she told me the hour was over."  
  
"That's odd. She just let you sleep?"  
  
"Yes. I just slept. That's all, I slept."  
  
Barbara frowned and looked up at Alfred who had entered the room. She wheeled over to him and then the two of them moved out of the room. "That sounds strange, right?"  
  
"Indeed," Alfred admitted. "Miss Dinah just called in. She and Detective Reese are on their way back."  
  
"I take it they were successful?"  
  
"They didn't provide details. She just asked that I have medical supplies ready."  
  
"Great," Barbara said with a sigh. She ran her fingers through her hair. "Something feels wrong here. Dr. Quinzell goes out of her way to call Helena in for a session and then lets her sleep through it? Am I being too suspicious?"  
  
"Trust your gut," Alfred advised. "It rarely leads you wrong."  
  
She squeezed his forearm. "Tell me when they get back."  
  
"Yes, of course," he said, before turning away. She watched him for a moment and then turned and went back to Helena's side.  
  
"Okay. After you left Dr. Quinzell, where did you go?"  
  
"I went to No Man's Land for a drink. Then I went back to the Clocktower."  
  
"That was about eight?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And you stayed until almost eleven?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And then?"  
  
"And then I went hunting."  
  
"Then you went home?"  
  
"No. I bumped into Reese. We made a date for coffee for the next day."  
  
"All work and no play I see," Barbara quipped. "Okay. Was that about the time I contacted you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And then you went home?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Did you go straight to bed?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Barbara made a face. "Did you clean out your wounds first?"  
  
"No."  
  
She could swear that Helena was almost smiling. She suppressed an urge to lightly slap the girls' arm. "Okay, I want you to focus. Try to recall what happened during your counseling session. Did anything seem strange or off to you?"  
  
Helena paused for a long moment and then she said, "I slept. That's all. I slept."  
  
Barbara frowned. "Okay Helena, on the count of three I want you to return to the waking world. Any suggestions you have in your mind should be ignored."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"One. Two. Three."  
  
Helena blinked and then yawned. "My back," she said suddenly, grimacing in pain.  
  
"Your back?"  
  
"Ow. It hurts."  
  
Barbara moved to her side and gently pushed her forward. She lifted up the back of her shirt and examined Helena's olive colored skin. "Now that's odd."  
  
"I don't like that," Helena muttered as she felt Barbara running her hands over her back. They were so soft and warm.  
  
"You have what looks like an injection hole on your back. It's very faint."  
  
"Uh, why?" Helena asked, a bit of fear and a lot of anger in her voice. She was getting mighty sick and tired of being screwed around with.  
  
"I don't know," Barbara admitted as she ran a nail over the tiny indent that was located just at the base of Helena's spine. "Stay here."  
  
"Not moving very far these days," Helena replied dryly. "Can I sit back?"  
  
"No, not yet," Barbara said as she wheeled out of the room.  
  
"Great," Helena muttered. She stared down at the leather of the recliner she was sitting in and made note of the cross patterns. It occurred to her that it wasn't real leather. "Nice Barb."  
  
"Okay," Barbara said as she re-entered the room.  
  
"Whoa! Whoa! Hell no!"  
  
"It won't hurt much," Barbara insisted as she lifted up a long metal needle. "I just need to see if there is any residual fluid inside of the wound. It could tell us if something was injected or removed."  
  
"There isn't another way?" Helena asked desperately, shrinking away from the oversized needle.  
  
"No," Barbara said firmly. "Now stop being a baby and hold still. We're lucky this is even here after almost four weeks."  
  
"Wait. What?"  
  
"Hold on," Barbara said as she inserted the needle into the small hole. Helena hissed in pain and then fully cried out. She made several loud gagging noises and then rolled forward into Oracle's arms. "Helena?"  
  
"Fuck that hurts."  
  
Barbara wrinkled her brow. Helena was typically very tough so it was unlikely that she was complaining about a simple needle prick. Even an especially invasive one. Barbara backed up a few inches and then examined the wound. Then she whistled. "Wow."  
  
"Ugh."  
  
"You're okay," Barbara reassured her. "I think some type of drug was inserted into your brain stem." She continued to gaze down at the large spot of red swelling that had appeared around the now disturbed wound.  
  
"Great. Lovely. Can you make my back stop exploding?"  
  
"Right," Barbara said. She took another needle out of the bag she had brought into the room and injected it into Helena's arm. Huntress tossed her an angry look but then sighed.  
  
"Okay, first, you ever stick me with anything ever again, I'll kill you..."  
  
"I'd like to see you try," Barbara replied dryly, her eyes already locked on whatever sample she had taken. There was a faint cream colored substance clinging to the walls of the needle she was holding.  
  
"Second, thank you. That feels much better."  
  
"Good. Hang out; I want to run this through all the computers. See what we're dealing with."  
  
"Hanging," Helena reassured her. She dropped her head back against the rest. "Can you turn the TV on though? I'm missing Springer."  
  
"Sure," Barbara said absently. "But it'll rot your brain."  
  
"Barb?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"No commentary, huh? Just turn the TV on."  
  
"Oh sure. Sorry." She reached across and snapped the twenty-five inch television on and then beat a hasty retreat towards her lab, her mind already spinning with possibilities.  
  
END CHAPTER 2 


	3. 3

"What the hell happened to you?" Helena demanded as she saw Dinah help Reese into the room. She dropped the handsome cop onto the couch and then went over to Alfred who was holding the first aide kit. The butler dutifully held it out to her as well as a stack of towels.  
  
"It kicked my ass," Reese commented dryly. He gazed down at his chest and scowled.  
  
"It? The creature?"  
  
"A werewolf."  
  
"No," Helena said shaking her head. "Those don't exist." Then she frowned. "They do, don't they?"  
  
"You know, I don't know why this is such a shock to you. After meeting you and getting to know you, nothing is a surprise to me anymore," Reese said with a short laugh. "I'm getting pretty much used to the insanity."  
  
"Now you're just being a pain," Helena said dryly. "Are you okay?"  
  
"Sure," he replied.  
  
"Take your shirt off," Dinah ordered him. She was crouched down in front of him. He looked over at Helena who just winked at him. Sighing, he reached up and pulled it off.  
  
"Impressive," Dinah said with a grin. "But the undershirt has to go as well." Once he had removed that as well, she began to dab at the gaping wounds on his chest, carefully avoiding the bloody mess in the middle of his gut where his stitches had been.  
  
"How did the hypnosis go?"  
  
"I dunno. You'd have to ask Barbara. She found a hole in my back, stuck a needle in it and then disappeared. Haven't seen her since," Helena cracked. She was obviously less than amused. "Oh and since my back was hurting, she gave me more painkillers."  
  
"That sounds nice," he said, wincing as Dinah pressed the cold cloth into one of the gashes.  
  
"But you stopped it? The werewolf I mean."  
  
"Yeah," Reese said thoughtfully. "We stopped it." He didn't look so happy. In fact, considering that he had just put down a rather vicious killer, he looked downright upset. Dismayed even.  
  
"Good," she mumbled. "That's good."  
  
She wasn't sure she meant it.  
  
"So what do we have?" Alfred asked, moving behind Barbara. She was bent over a microscope, staring intently at the sample.  
  
"We have some answers and a few more questions," Barbara said thoughtfully. "This drug that's in Helena is a highly experimental one. In fact, the FDA pointblank refused to allow research involving it because of the risks and the possible uses of it."  
  
"What's it for?"  
  
"Well originally it was created so as to help veterans of war and other traumatic events get past those experiences. At least mentally. The drug could be used to completely rewrite a person's brain. There were side effects however."  
  
"I take it they weren't beneficial?"  
  
"No. They ranged rather wildly. A bit of insomnia, headaches and some new medical ailments. The most severe however involved blackouts relating to extreme emotional responses. Sound familiar?"  
  
"Indeed. Hasn't that been Miss Helena's problem until just recently?"  
  
"Right. Research papers say that symptom was relatively temporary but always led into something far worse. Some patients died and others had severe psychotic breaks. One doctor even hypothesized that the drug could be used as a mental gateway to potentially allow a deviant telepath to hijack someone's brain."  
  
"You believe that's the situation now?"  
  
She nodded slowly. "He was laughed at of course. Science refuses to believe that telepathy is real. We know better and the Joker definitely hijacked her mind. I'd say all the puzzle pieces fit."  
  
"Except one?"  
  
"Except one. Why would her therapist inject her with this? Why would she be working for the Joker?" Barbara queried, confusion in her gaze.  
  
"What did you say her name was again?"  
  
"Dr. Quinzell."  
  
"And did you do any research on her?"  
  
Barbara shook her head and frowned. "No, I guess I didn't think I had to. She's the court appointed psychiatrist. The police use her for quite a few of their consults."  
  
"Quinzell. That sounds familiar somehow," Alfred mused. "I can recall an associate of the Joker's named Harlequin or something like that..."  
  
Barbara spun suddenly, eyes wide. "Alfred. Oh God..." Her hands covered her mouth. "Oh God, what have I done?"  
  
"I'm afraid you've lost me? If you're about to blame yourself for allowing Miss Helena to see Dr. Quinzell, let's first be certain of the facts."  
  
"Right. Of course," Barbara said quietly. She quickly wheeled herself out into the main control room and began to type on her wireless keyboard. A moment later she looked up in wild desperation. "I know every dark secret the president of the United States has but I didn't see one of our worst enemies right in front of my face." She moved the screen around so that Alfred could see it. "Dr. Harleen Quinzell." She pressed two keys. "Here's a face recognition scan to Harlequin. It matches ninety-nine percent. Point seven."  
  
"Dr. Quinzell?" Reese asked as he entered the room. He was shirtless but his chest was covered heavily in white gauze that was already spotting. Dinah trailed a few feet behind him, looking irritated. In his hand he was holding a police folder.  
  
"You've met her?" Barbara asked.  
  
"Yes. I've worked with her on a few cases. Look, on the way over here, I stopped by the station and found the file for our werewolf guy. Not easily I might add. And by the way you said werewolves don't exist."  
  
"Yeah, sorry about that," Barbara muttered. He waved her off. "How did you get an ID?"  
  
"He was wearing a bracelet around his wrist with his name on it. A medical ID," Reese informed her. "His name is Connor McCauley. He was a patient of Dr. Quinzell's. Court-ordered."  
  
"Why?" Barbara asked, her interest perked.  
  
"About four weeks ago he was involved in a road rage incident. Anger management."  
  
"Just like Helena. Anything else in his jacket?"  
  
"Not a thing," Reese replied.  
  
"So kid gets angry and goes to see shrink. Next thing we know, kid's out murdering people."  
  
"All good and nice but how does he become a werewolf?" Dinah asked.  
  
"That's where Dr. Quinzell apparently comes in," Barbara sighed.  
  
"I'm lost. I thought she was one of the good guys," Reese insisted.  
  
Barbara shook her head. "She's the Joker's paramour. She used to go by Harlequin. I don't know how I missed it."  
  
"Of course she is," Reese groaned.  
  
"Barbara, it's not your fault," Dinah said firmly.  
  
"It is," Oracle replied. She held up her hand to stop any further argument. "But that's neither here nor there."  
  
"Okay, so what is?"  
  
"She injected Helena with a drug that's being used to keep the psychic wavelength open. The tox screens I ran on the night we brought her back here didn't show anything. I just reran them with the chemical sequence of the UX40..."  
  
"That's the name of the drug?" Dinah asked.  
  
"Codename," Barbara replied. "It showed up. It's still in her blood stream. Which is why she isn't healing as fast as we would expect for one and why she was having those blackouts for two. It's also why she has next to no drive. It's suppressing her adrenalin. She can't fight back."  
  
"Bully that," Helena said from the doorway. "No drug tells me what I can and can not do."  
  
Barbara smiled warmly at her young charge. "Sit down. How's your back feel?"  
  
"Terrible. Okay I get that they injected something into me to screw with my head, why is it hurting my back? And why suddenly now?"  
  
"I don't have an answer for why now but it hurts at all because it was injected into your spine. It's like a tap. Never a very pleasant thing." She reached out and took Helena's hand. "Sit down, there's something I need to tell you."  
  
Helena narrowed her eyes. "I don't like that." She dropped into one of the chairs and grunted in relief as the pain slid through her body. "What's wrong?"  
  
"When you were under hypnosis, I asked what you had done the day before you were kidnapped..."  
  
"You didn't have to hypnotize me for that. I hung around here all day."  
  
"You didn't go to see Dr. Quinzell?" Barbara asked, her brow furrowing.  
  
Helena shook her head. "No. She called to cancel our appointment for the following day. I just hung around."  
  
Barbara shook her head slowly. "That's not what happened. You did go into a meeting with her and I think she knocked you out..."  
  
"What?" Helena said, cocking her head. "No way..."  
  
"Helena, eight years ago when the Joker was at his height, he had quite a few followers. None were more omnipresent than his paramour." She turned the monitor so that Huntress could see a picture of a woman dressed like a court jester. "Harlequin."  
  
Helena squinted. "That's her?"  
  
Barbara tapped a key and another picture appeared next to the one of Harlequin. It was a staff shot of Dr. Quinzell.  
  
"Oh God," Helena murmured. Then she looked up. "You mean I've been getting mind-fucked by the Joker this whole time?"  
  
"I don't think so. I think the Joker just recently found out who you are and he went through her to get the results he wanted. You've been seeing her for almost eight months now. If she had known the whole time, we'd have seen signs of that long before now."  
  
"Well that's a relief I guess," Helena muttered. Then she grinned over at Reese who had dropped himself into one of the chairs. "Welcome to my life, Detective. Only I would end up being head-shrunk by the girlfriend of our mortal enemy."  
  
He chuckled and looked down at his chest, which was spotting even more heavily. Dinah moved over to him quickly and began to un-wrap the gauze, all the while muttering something about bulls and trains or something like that.  
  
"Okay, so catch me up here. I've been injected with this weird drug...by my own shrink no less...and because of it, the Joker can hijack my brain? Doesn't he still have to be a telepath?"  
  
"Yes," Barbara said slowly. "And Harley isn't one. Which means we still have a missing link somewhere. Someone inside the prison is helping him." She spun back towards her computers and began to type.  
  
"What are you doing?" Helena asked, her eyes still on Reese. His chest was a bloody mess. She winced every single time he did. And then felt like a dope for doing so.  
  
"Searching the database for known associates of the Joker with strong enough telepathic abilities to be able to open up a psychic wavelength and allow him to use it."  
  
"What about Scarecrow?" Dinah asked. She wrinkled her nose. "Okay so I did some looking around in the meta database."  
  
Barbara tossed her a look but decided to let it pass. "No. His powers were a bit different than that. He could get into your head but not in this fashion. Whoever this is, they're acting more like a hub than anything else..."  
  
"A hub?" Helena sighed. "You mean kind of like a meeting station?"  
  
"Right," Barbara said nodding. "They enable the connection. The router."  
  
"We're getting techie again," Helena warned.  
  
"Sorry," Barbara said with a smile. "I don't think this person has any actual control of the situation anymore than a hub or a router does. They're just keeping the line open."  
  
"So find the router and close the connection and get the Joker out of her mind?" Reese put forward.  
  
"Simple," Barbara said nodding. "Not wrong."  
  
"Great," Helena said. "So what's our simple plan because I gotta say, this really pisses me off."  
  
"Wait a second," Barbara said thoughtfully as she looked up. She turned towards Dinah. "I need a tissue sample from the morgue from our werewolf."  
  
"Okay. Why?" Dinah asked, creasing her forehead. Morgue duty was the type of action that she would gladly relinquish back to Helena once the older crime fighter was up and kicking ass again.  
  
"Not sure yet. Just...just get it for me."  
  
"On it," she replied. Then she turned to Reese. "Don't move an inch."  
  
He held up his hand as if to show that he was just an easy-going feller. Meaning no harm.  
  
She tossed him one final look and then broke for the door.  
  
"Careful Reese or I'm gonna start thinking you and Dinah have something going on," Helena teased.  
  
"She's sixteen," he protested.  
  
Helena just grinned. Then she winked. "Easy there cowboy, just hassling you."  
  
He shook his head, "I'm never gonna get you, am I?"  
  
"Depends on what you mean by 'get me'."  
  
He broke into a broad smile then. "I meant understand you."  
  
She shook her head. "Oh that. No, you never will."  
  
Barbara scowled. Then she hit her fist against the table. "I was so sure."  
  
"Sure of what?" Dinah asked, looking over her shoulder. Barbara was seated in front of LCD flat-panel in the lab.  
  
"I thought maybe he was the router. He's not meta at all. Whatever happened to him, it was done to him."  
  
"By drugs?"  
  
"Being a werewolf typically isn't a chemical thing," Barbara noted. "That said, something was done to him. Four weeks ago he was a normal human being. Tonight he's lying in a morgue because he became a killer. After he went to see Harley."  
  
"Are you testing him for drugs?"  
  
"Mmm hmm." Barbara moved forward to look at the screen. "Interesting."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Connor McCauley has trace amounts of UX40 in his blood stream. He must have been a test subject." She spun around to look at a pad of a paper where she had jotted down notes. "The last time Dr. Quinzell reports that he came to a session was three days before Helena was kidnapped. The first murder happened a week later but the police classified it as a dog mauling. It wasn't until it happened again that they started calling it a homicide."  
  
"So, how did they turn him into a werewolf?"  
  
"I imagine that's what that is," Barbara said pointing at the screen. "That on the left is a normal human DNA strand. The one on the right is lupine. Somehow or another they've been merged. Crudely I'd say. They just injected him with a hybrid stream. It had the same effect as being bit by a werewolf only McCauley went insane far sooner than I'm sure they expected. Just the same, they got rid of their evidence."  
  
"Is that how they linked his killings to Helena's mind?"  
  
Barbara nodded. "They still had control of McCauley's mind so they told him what to do and then relayed the details to Helena. Talk about a true router."  
  
"I'll take your word for it," Dinah teased. "Okay, so he's dead. How do we stop Helena from suffering the same fate? They drove him crazy. Aren't they trying to do that with her?"  
  
"Right now they can't get in. I don't know how long that will last. I sent an email to a friend of mine who worked on the initial studies of UX40. Hopefully he can tell me if there was ever an antidote created. In the meanwhile, you get to do some detective work."  
  
"Ooh. Sounds like fun. Who's my partner and don't tell me Reese. He can't even stand."  
  
"Not Reese. A friend of ours who just got into town tonight. He's been away at school but he just called in."  
  
"Another friend?"  
  
"His name is Tim Drake."  
  
"It's a good strong name. Doesn't have much of a superhero ring but still..."  
  
Barbara shook her head and then pushed ahead. "After Dick gave up the mantle of Robin, Tim assumed the role. Not exactly in that order but that's not important now. After Bruce left, Tim went to New York to go to school. He just finished up his finals and he's back in town for a few days."  
  
"So he's my partner now?"  
  
"Yep," Barbara agreed. "I will warn you though; Tim has an interesting sense of humor. He and Helena tend to exist on the same wavelength when it comes to their jokes."  
  
Dinah made a loud snorting noise. "Great. Because we so need more of that."  
  
"You have no idea," Barbara chuckled.  
  
"So, when do I get started?"  
  
"Tomorrow morning. Tonight you sleep."  
  
Dinah sighed impatiently. "Time's wasting."  
  
"I know," Barbara admitted. "But you're of no use to me or anyone else if you can barely stand. You might not be there yet but give it a few more hours and you will be. I'm not about to put you in any more danger. At least not tonight."  
  
Dinah reached across and squeezed Barbara's shoulder. "We make our own choices. Sometime things happen. You can't anticipate everything."  
  
"That's true," Barbara said nodding. "But I should have known who was head- shrinking Helena. I can't even imagine what other damage that wacko has done to her head. Like she needs the help."  
  
"I resent that," Helena said as she limped into the room.  
  
"You should be in bed," Barbara said with an impatient sigh.  
  
"You seem to be trying awfully hard to get the two of us in the sack, Babs," Helena said with a smirk. "Something you want to tell us?"  
  
The beautiful redhead known as Oracle spun in her chair. She narrowed her eyes and tried to look stern. "If you two aren't in bed within the next five minutes..."  
  
"You'll what?" Helena challenged, leaning against the door.  
  
"'I'll drug you up so much that you won't know your name for the next year," Barbara threatened. Then she glanced at Dinah. "And I'll ground you."  
  
Helena held up hand in defeat. "Okay. Okay. I was actually headed to bed anyways." She smirked over at Dinah. "Come on, lover. Join me."  
  
Dinah swallowed hard. "Goodnight." Turning quickly, she departed the lab. All she could hear behind her was Helena laughing.  
  
"That was mean," Barbara told the brunette crime fighter.  
  
"Yeah, it was," Helena admitted, still leaning against the wall. She put a hand over her mouth and yawned. "Seriously though, you should turn in as well. Stop beating yourself up over Dr. Quinzell. That's my job and once I can, I'm going to kick the living shit out of that witch."  
  
"So I'm guessing there's no chance of me convincing you to see another psychiatrist?"  
  
"I'm thinking no here," Helena said with a short laugh. Then her face drew together and she sombered. "You think that's all she did to me? I mean drug me up?"  
  
Barbara slid her chair over close to Helena. She reached out and took her young charge's hands in hers. "I don't know," she confessed. "But we will get to the bottom of this. One way or another, we'll find out everything she did to you."  
  
"I believe you," Helena said softly.  
  
"Good. Now to bed."  
  
"Only if you promise me that you'll sack out soon yourself."  
  
"I will," Barbara said with a laugh. "Is Reese sleeping on the couch in the living room?"  
  
Helena grinned, her eyes shimmering. "What? You thought he was back in my bed waiting for me?"  
  
"Uh uh. No chance that I'm touching that one with a ten foot pole," Barbara said with a snort.  
  
Helena opened her mouth as if to reply but then wisely held her tongue. After a long moment she settled on simply winking at Barbara. "Night," she sang out.  
  
"Night," Barbara said with a tired sigh. She had already turned back to the monitors so she didn't see Helena wobbling out of the lab, her hands flat on the walls to steady her gait. Instead her eyes had already refocused on the words on the screen. "Okay," she muttered. "Time for you to start making sense."  
  
He looked up at her and cocked his head. "What is this?" His red lips were turned downwards as his mood continued to sink. He could feel his well- constructed plan falling apart. It had taken so much to bring it all together and now that little blonde twit had torn it all apart. And the bat brat was temporarily out of his reach.  
  
"Easy, Mr. J," she squeaked, her hand massaging his shoulder. It felt good and he almost let his eyes close so that he could enjoy the touch. Almost. But really, there were more important things at hand. She was holding out her other hand to him and he saw a small remote control complete with red blinking lights sitting there. "This is fail-safe," she informed him. "You know, if we can't get back into her head."  
  
"What will it do?" he asked, staring up at her. His eyes were wide. He fidgeted a bit, annoyed by the prison outfit. Because he was in federal prison and presumably so far hidden from the normal population as to be incapable of harming anyone, they had allowed him to remain unchained. The burnt orange jumpsuit however was apparently mandatory.  
  
The blonde woman cackled and bent closer. Her tongue lightly flicked his face. She smiled at him sweetly. "Why it'll blow her head up. All to little pretty pieces. Bang."  
  
He gazed up at her with wonder and just a little bit of hope. "It will? Bang?"  
  
She nodded slowly. "Bang. I promise." She reached forward and kissed his forehead. "Just in case."  
  
He smiled then. His red lips swept upwards and his green hair seemed to stand on end. He laughed. He grinned. He smiled affectionately at his paramour and told her of the rewards she would reap, as soon he was once again free of course.  
  
After all, why the hell not?  
  
He was going to win.  
  
END CHAPTER THREE 


	4. 4

It was well after two in the afternoon before anyone inside of the Clocktower stirred. With the exception of course of Alfred. The butler went about his business in that same manner that he always had. Prepare breakfast. Pick up that which needed to be picked up. Oh and of course clean up after Miss Helena who always left all of her possessions lying aimlessly about.  
  
"Good morning," Detective Reese said from the doorway of the kitchen. He was leaning against the wall, a hand resting gently against his side as if he was trying to keep his stomach in the right place. He was wearing a faded Gotham Knights shirt. For the life of him, Alfred couldn't recall where it had come from. Just the same, Miss Barbara had obviously found the good detective clothes to sleep in. Men's clothes at that. On his bottoms he wore a pair of green and black flannel pants that hung loosely on him.  
  
"Not quite morning, sir," Alfred replied with a slight smile. "Would you like some lunch?"  
  
"That would be great," Reese admitted as he made his way to the table. He dropped into one of the chairs next to it and sighed. His hand began to absently rub at the spot on his chest where he had been shot weeks earlier. And where the stitches had been torn from on the previous night.  
  
"Very well, sir," Alfred said with a quick nod. He made his way over to the cupboards and began to extract pots.  
  
"Is it always this quiet around here during the day?"  
  
Alfred considered this for a moment and then slowly nodded. "These women are not exactly day creatures. Miss Barbara and Miss Dinah do go to the high school but Miss Helena..."  
  
"Careful, Alfred, you might give away too many of my secrets," Helena quipped from the doorway. She too was leaning heavily against it. Just the same, the butler found himself marveling at the fact that she was walking at all. Four weeks ago the Joker had smashed both of her legs with a steel mallet. If she had never used them again, that wouldn't have been such a shock. If she hadn't been able to walk for months or even years, that would have been expected. But of course that didn't take into consideration the Helena factor; she never quit.  
  
"Dread that," he drolled before stepping back towards the stove. He moved himself as close as he could to it so as to push himself out of their eyesight. A good butler knew how to disappear while remaining in plain sight.  
  
"So you're not much of a morning person," Reese said with humor. "I kind of figured that. You being a night person and all."  
  
"And that's why they gave you the shiny shield," Helena grinned. She slapped his arm lightly as she approached the table. A moment later she was sitting on the long couch that sat next to the table. Reaching out, she stretched her long limbs. "I haven't slept that good in months." Then she looked at Reese and frowned. "You're bleeding."  
  
He lifted an eyebrow. "I guess I am," he admitted. "How did..."  
  
"I can smell it," she offered by way of explanation. She waved off his look, knowing that he wanted to ask her more questions. "Take your shirt off."  
  
"You know you women around here are so demanding," Reese said with a laugh as he pulled the tee off. His chest was bandaged thickly, white gauze surrounding dark flesh.  
  
She reached across and touched her finger to one of the spots of blood on the gauze. It was relatively fresh. She scowled. "Did Dinah stitch you up?"  
  
"With the smallest stitches humanly possible," he said with a short laugh. Then he sighed. "I didn't sleep as well as you did apparently."  
  
"Fool man," she said shaking her head. "You ripped your damn stitches tossing and turning." She looked up and into his eyes. "Were the dreams good at least? I mean, anything interesting that you want to talk about?" She flashed her most seductive smile at him. "I'm listening."  
  
He blinked and she saw the slightest bit of a flush come over his cheeks. Luckily for him his dark skin obscured the red. He coughed as if to clear his throat and then gruffly replied, "I don't really remember."  
  
"Uh huh," she said with a cocky smile. One that seemed to say 'gotcha'. She tossed off a quick wink and then went back to inspecting his chest. Her fingers trailed over his skin, stopping just long enough to leave a spot of heat against his flesh. "We should get this cleaned out." She scowled and held up the spoiled bandage.  
  
He shook his head slowly, a smile spreading across his face as he collected himself. "You, uh, you don't typically clean out your own wounds, do you?"  
  
She made a face. "Sure I do. A little alcohol and a Band-Aid. Usually not in that order."  
  
"Productive I'm sure," he said dryly. "I bet you never get infections."  
  
She snorted. "Only rarely. Usually I have heil Barbara the Nazi Medic disinfecting every little scrape."  
  
"And thank God for that," Barbara said as she entered. She was wearing sweats and a wife-beater, which was markedly different from Helena's jeans and black rayon Nike pullover. "If not for me, she'd have a gaping hole in every body part which she'd think would magically heal without treatment."  
  
"I'm stubborn like that," Helena quipped. She grinned as Alfred stepped back over to the table and placed plates in front of all three of them. "Ooh, BLT. Alfred, you rock."  
  
He smiled warmly at her and collected the offered up high-five.  
  
"Thanks Alfred," Barbara said with relief. She smiled at the exchange between Helena and Alfred. Things really were getting back to normal.  
  
As normal as they tended to get on any given day anyways.  
  
"Will Miss Dinah be joining us shortly?"  
  
Barbara shook her head. "I sent her to meet Tim."  
  
Helena lifted an eyebrow. "Tim's in town?"  
  
"Now stop right there," Barbara cautioned. "He's home from college and he's here just to help. You two are going to stay as far away from each other as possible."  
  
Reese lifted an eyebrow. "More stories?"  
  
"Tim's like another brother. Only more like a younger one as opposed to the overbearing type that Dick is. I have fun with Tim," Helena informed him. Then she pouted. "That is until he gets all serious-like and decides to do the college thing which is a real drag."  
  
"Viva la education," Barbara grinned. "Anyways, I sent Dinah to meet him so they can check out STAR labs. I have a doctor friend there and it turns out he was one of the scientists assigned to the UX40 research studies."  
  
"Doesn't that mean they have to go to Metropolis? Tim doesn't have a car. All he has is that skanky little momma's boy bike," Helena said with a grin.  
  
"Helena," Barbara cautioned but her tone with a joking one. "He's put a lot of time and effort in to that bike. It's just not going as well as he'd like." She shook her head. "And yes, they're going to Metropolis. It'll be Dinah's first trip out of Gotham since she arrived."  
  
"Tim likes playing guide," Helena said with affection. "I hope he doesn't scare her."  
  
"Oh he will," Barbara said dryly. "That much I'm certain of."  
  
Helena smiled then. "Everything's going to be okay."  
  
Reese turned and gazed at her, trying to read the strange expression that was on her face. "Because your little brother is in town?"  
  
She nodded slowly, a little bit of youthful idealism slipping into her expression. "Exactly," she replied. "Precisely."  
  
"I wouldn't argue with her, Reese. It'll get you nowhere," Barbara said between bites of her BLT.  
  
"I wouldn't dream of it," he said with a laugh. "Optimism is never bad."  
  
Helena reached out and touched his arm lightly. "Just a matter of time now."  
  
"How's that?" Reese queried, looking more than a bit confused. While he was thankful that her determination had returned, he was a bit concerned by the near elation. No matter what happened, it wasn't going to be easy.  
  
"Until the Joker never hurts anyone ever again," Helena said with a calm confidence that set every hair on the back of his neck flying upwards. She tossed him another smile and then reached down and picked up her sandwich.  
  
Barbara reacted to the scene with a cool detachment. She had seen Helena like this before. So calm and sure. So icy and determined.  
  
It only ever meant one thing; trouble was on its way.  
  
He stood and smiled. Extending his hand, he said lightly, "You must be Dinah."  
  
She nodded slowly. "I must be which would make you Tim."  
  
He bowed slightly, an impish grin playing across his boyishly handsome features. His dark hair was mussed and devoid of gel. "Tim Drake at your service."  
  
Involuntarily, she grinned foolishly. She was aware of the expression but found herself helpless to remove it from her face. Finally she settled on, "Nice to meet you?"  
  
"That sounds like a question," he said with the same impish smile. "Is it nice to meet me or not?"  
  
She swallowed hard. "It is."  
  
"Good then. Have you eaten?" He motioned back towards the table. There was a bowl of steaming brownish liquid sitting in front of him. It looked like soup. Likely beef from the smell of it.  
  
She shook her head slowly. "A bowl of cereal."  
  
"Then I insist you join me for lunch before we go about playing James Bond for Oracle."  
  
"Okay," she said, her smile growing. She fell into the chair opposite him. "So, how long have you known Barbara?"  
  
"Not all my life but the important part of it," Tim replied. He reached down and offered her one of his breadsticks, which she gladly took. "Since Bruce took me in."  
  
"Bruce seemed to take a lot of people in," Dinah noted.  
  
"Yeah. It's always been a shame that he never knew about Helena. She would have really set his jets flying."  
  
Dinah lifted an eyebrow but chose not to comment on his strange choice in dialogue. "So you and Helena are pretty tight?"  
  
"We used to be. When I was still living here in Gotham, we used to hang out a lot. Make some trouble. She's wild."  
  
"That she is," Dinah agreed. She looked up at the waiter who had suddenly appeared. "I'll just have what he's having."  
  
"Very good," the waiter replied and then swept away back towards the kitchen.  
  
"We used to drive Barbara nuts. Stay out until three in the morning probably having a little bit too much fun for our own good. Babs will never admit it but she was happy when I went away to college."  
  
"I'm sure that's not true."  
  
He winked at her. "I'm sure it is and it's okay. Hel and I tore some shit up awful good." He laughed then, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "We drove her pretty nuts. Made her be all momish. She hates that."  
  
"I imagine," she muttered.  
  
"So," he said, leaning closer to her. "You ready for an adventure?"  
  
She blew out air between her teeth. "I fear you," she finally admitted with a nervous laugh.  
  
He grinned wildly and wrinkled his nose. "Good girl."  
  
"What are you laughing at, Detective?" Helena queried, gazing over at the handsome cop who was leaning back into one of the chairs. He was reading a police file and was definitely amused.  
  
"Your sheet," he chuckled. "You are quite the hellraiser aren't you?"  
  
She feigned a stunned look. "Me? You must be mistaken. That can't be my file. I volunteer for the Girl Scouts of America, don't ya know?"  
  
"Have you ever even looked at your police file?" Reese asked, shaking his head. "It's insane."  
  
"I have," Barbara said, sliding behind Reese. "It's all night reading though. Though suitably tawdry for bedtime story."  
  
Reese laughed. "Indeed."  
  
"I thought you were supposed to make that disappear," Helena quipped as she dropped herself into one of the chairs. She groaned which immediately caused both Reese and Barbara to look up quickly. She waved her hand dismissively at the two of them and then looked pointedly at Reese. "You won't stand a chance if you freak every single time I'm in pain. It happens entirely too much."  
  
He shrugged. "I get that." Then he looked at Barbara. "So anything yet from Dinah?"  
  
"No," Barbara admitted, shaking her head. "And honestly I don't know exactly what they're looking for either. Just something."  
  
"Those are usually the most amusing searches anyways," Helena snorted as she brought a mug of coffee to her lips. "Huntress, find me a speck of dirt tinted blue in the middle of the beach. Oh and it needs to have a photograph of my ass on it."  
  
"Such the drama queen," Barbara muttered.  
  
"Quite the flair," Reese admitted. Then he sighed loudly. "I'm not great at doing nothing."  
  
"If you have an idea, I'm listening," Barbara informed him.  
  
Reese nodded slowly. "I do."  
  
Helene leaned forward, resting her chin on her palms. "Do tell. Did I get to punch someone?"  
  
He offered her a small sweet smile. "Ah, there's my Huntress...always looking for a chance to beat people up."  
  
"Glad to be of service. So, do I? I mean I know I'll have to be held up a bit but it could still be fun. Especially if we get some good bruising."  
  
He laughed. "No. No beating."  
  
"I don't think I like where this is going," Barbara said softly, almost to herself.  
  
Reese took a deep breath. "Barbara, you and I are going to see the Joker. It's time you faced him."  
  
"So are you going to tell me any stories?" Dinah queried, turning slightly towards her companion. "I mean about you and Helena?"  
  
Tim snorted. "I could tell you many," he said with a laugh. His eyes were on the long stretch of road in front of them. Mindless miles of highway all leading to a funky little place called Metropolis.  
  
"We have time," Dinah said, leaning back in to the passenger seat.  
  
"Curious aren't we," Tim said, swerving abruptly around a little Honda that was going only fifty in the middle lane of traffic. He made a grunting noise of disgust at the other driver and then grinned at Dinah. "What would you like to know?"  
  
Dinah shrugged. "Look I came in to this whole thing less than a year ago. In the past four weeks, I've heard the beginnings of a lot of stories involving Helena. What was she like in high school? Was she all sunny and perky?"  
  
"No," Tim said, his voice almost a giggle as he contemplated that particular image of Helena Kyle. "She was different before her mom died but she was never sunny and perky. She was a pain in the ass back then too."  
  
"Oh?" Dinah said, lifting an eyebrow. Her pale blue eyes scanned the highway. There was a large sign on the right hand side that proclaimed in bold letters that Metropolis was only sixty-five miles further up the road. "Ever heard of this Superman guy?"  
  
Tim laughed. "On occasion," he replied. He shook his head. It amused him to no end that Dinah considered Superman to be something of a myth.  
  
Amused and saddened him.  
  
Seven years ago Batman had been more than a myth. He had been Gotham's most notorious hero. It's greatest champion. Nowadays he was a legend that no one was quite sure had ever existed. The world was changing again and people were starting to fear their heroes. Now even Superman, the boy scout of all heroes was being turned in to a myth.  
  
Dinah seemed to wave off Tim's cryptic comment. "So, you and Helena went to school together?"  
  
Tim nodded. "Yep. Didn't know who she was back then. I mean whom she belonged to. Bruce thought she was some ward that Selena had grabbed off the street. A protégé. To be honest, I have no idea how Bruce didn't always know that Hel was his."  
  
"Sounds crazy. Did you guys date?"  
  
"No. Well kinda," Tim replied, wrinkling his nose.  
  
"That isn't much of an answer."  
  
"We fooled around. Never got serious. Then I found who she was and that she was pretty much my adopted sister and it just got icky," Tim said with a laugh. "You should have seen the look on her face though when she found out that..."  
  
He stopped, suddenly seemingly aware that Helena might not like him kissing and telling.  
  
"You can't stop there," Dinah insisted.  
  
"Yes," he said. "I'd better or I'll get my ass kicked by her. Legs or no." He paused for a moment, growing serious. "She's ok, right?"  
  
Dinah nodded slowly. "She's strong."  
  
Tim shook his head. "I've been around the block a time or two, Dinah. I know what 'she's strong' means. It means you have no idea and you're worried. I expect that kind of statement from Barbara. It's a pragmatic answer. I figured you for the more optimistic type."  
  
She shrugged and said plainly, "Usually I am."  
  
"But?"  
  
"It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Did Barbara tell you about me going into Helena's head?"  
  
Tim nodded slowly and then shivered. "Love her to death but that's not somewhere I'd want to be. You know every single time I see her, I think she's becoming more and more like Bruce. Only with an actual sense of humor."  
  
"That's a pretty significant difference from what I hear," Dinah interjected.  
  
Tim laughed. "You have a point."  
  
"So what exactly are we going to Metropolis for?"  
  
"Barbara ever told you about STAR?"  
  
"In passing."  
  
"Look, the short story is, there are a lot of heroes in the world. A lot of villains too. They've all been lumped in the meta category but many of them were given powers through other means. Superman is from another planet. Green Lantern gets it from his ring. The list goes on."  
  
"Ok," Dinah said nodding, eyes wide with fascination. She made a mental note to go back through the database when this was all over. Barbara had to have notes on pretty much everything.  
  
"STAR is a place that makes a habit of studying things like that. And they help some of the heroes when they can. They've stepped in for the Titans and Superman a couple of times."  
  
"You're so way over my head," Dinah laughed. "I feel like I'm reading a comic book."  
  
Tim snorted. "In some ways you are."  
  
"Okay so why do you think STAR will have something on this UX40?"  
  
"Well, for it fully work to the best of it's capabilities, it needs someone that has special powers. Someone who can channel the psychic wavelength. Someone who can hack someone's brain. Sounds pretty not human to me."  
  
"Are we dealing with a meta?"  
  
Tim shrugged. "Dunno. Hopefully STAR can give us a few answers. A couple of their doctors worked on some of the trials for it."  
  
"What makes you think they'll talk to us?"  
  
"Barbara," Tim said with a chuckle. "Everyone talks to Barbara."  
  
"Why am I starting to get the feeling that there is more to Barbara Gordon than I'm exactly being let in on?"  
  
He winked at her. "All in good time my friend. Just never doubt, without her, without Oracle, everything would stop and we'd all be screwed."  
  
Dinah smiled knowingly. "I buy that."  
  
"Good. Now buckle up. I want to see how fast this rental can go."  
  
Helena wanted to pace. She wanted to jump up and makes tracks across the room. She wanted to burn indents in to the ground.  
  
That wasn't going to happen.  
  
She could manage about ten to fifteen minutes on her feet but even that was time spent wobbling to and fro. Her equilibrium was shot and her balance was seriously off.  
  
She figured she could use a V-8.  
  
"When are they going to be back?" she hissed out to the open air. Her eyes were locked on the monitors scattered around the control room but nothing was going on. It was all so very quiet.  
  
"They just left fifteen minutes ago," Alfred reminded her, offering her a glass that was filled with soda.  
  
"I could use a beer," she quipped.  
  
He nodded his understanding. "Would you prefer a different type of soda?"  
  
She laughed. "Nice." Then she turned to him, her face growing serious. "You think this is smart? I mean she hasn't really faced him since the day he crippled her. She saw him at the hospital the day of the shooting but this is face to face."  
  
"We all need to clear up our own personal demons," Alfred reminded her.  
  
"He's mine now," Helena said thoughtfully.  
  
He rested a hand on her shoulder. "Don't let him steal your soul. It's what he's trying to do. Don't allow him the pleasure."  
  
She looked up at him and then said in a very small voice, "I won't be anyone's victim." There were tears in her eyes. "He has to be stopped."  
  
He closed his eyes for a long moment, altogether too many old memories washing over him. The Joker had victimized Bruce and his entire family for so long that it almost seemed like tradition.  
  
He had killed one of Bruce's adopted children in Jason Todd. He had murdered Bruce's beloved and he had crippled his young protégé. And now he was after Bruce's daughter.  
  
Helena was right of course. He had to be stopped.  
  
And perhaps deadly force would even be necessary. Hell even mandated.  
  
But not at the expense of her soul.  
  
He opened his eyes. He smiled kindly at her. "You look cold. I'll go get you a blanket."  
  
And with that he left the room. No, he fled it. He wanted away from her. He was well trained in what he did but that didn't mean that he lacked human emotions. Human anger and pain.  
  
And he rather feared that if Helena Kyle saw how upset he was at all the Joker had done to his family, there'd no be stopping her.  
  
And he sure as hell wasn't about to help the Joker along.  
  
No matter how much he deserved it.  
  
No matter. The cost was too high.  
  
Too damn high.  
  
END CHAPTER 4 


	5. 5

"Breathe, Reese," Barbara Gordon said with a slight humorless smile. She stared hard at the stone front wall of the federal prison. Her hand gripped the metal wheel of her chair. It was a standard issue wheelchair instead of her enhanced one.  
  
"I am," he assured her. "I think." Involuntarily his hand fought down to his side and he scratched at the wound he had suffered weeks earlier at the Jokers' hand. It had been rewrapped in heavy gauze and tape but it still felt wet to him.  
  
He knew it was his mind.  
  
He'd come to see the Joker with Helena less than a week before but somehow this felt heavier. This felt like directly walking in to the middle of a ring of fire without any water.  
  
The guard looked up at Reese suspiciously. Barbara held up some kind of badge. He took it from her and then nodded. He turned, hit a button on the wall and then stepped back as the metal door slid open granting them access to the massive federal facility.  
  
"What was that?" Reese asked.  
  
"Something my father gave me a long time ago when I was working with Bruce. It allowed me to be able to gain access to Arkham whenever I needed to under the label of official police business. I just amended it so that it works for the feds to."  
  
"You're sneaky," Reese said appreciatively. "I like that."  
  
She chuckled.  
  
"So you ready for this?"  
  
She shook her head. "Uh uh. Not even remotely close." She offered him a warm smile and then looked ahead of her.  
  
There were several sliding doors and then a series of loud noises before they were buzzed in to the large room where the Joker was being held. He was cuffed and sitting behind a table. His eyes brightened considerably when he caught sight of Barbara.  
  
"Batgirl," he purred.  
  
She roughly pushed herself up and out of her chair and in to the steel chair seated at the opposite side of the table. She refused to speak to him from a place of weakness. From a place he'd put her.  
  
Reese seated himself next to her, his hand gripping the side of the chair for balance. He took a deep breath and settled himself in. Vaguely he was aware of the sensation that he was out of place but he pushed it back. He was there for support and to catch any clues Barbara might miss in her heat.  
  
"Joker," she replied coolly. "I want to know what you've done to Helena."  
  
"No you don't," he replied, shaking his head. His wild green hair swayed causing strange shadows against the wall. "You want to know what I've done to you. How I've turned you all inside out. Whee."  
  
She narrowed her eyes into hard slits. "I'm not here for any of your games. What did you do to her head?" She bit off the words hard, anger flashing in her green eyes.  
  
He shook his head. "I took her legs." He made it sound so obvious.  
  
"You have a leg fetish," Barbara muttered, rather self-depreciating. Then she looked up at him. "And you didn't take her legs. She's walking again. Now what did you do to her?"  
  
He leaned towards her, his eyes dancing. "I broke her," he said simply.  
  
Barbara reached out towards him but Reese quickly grabbed her arm. "Please don't make me yank you off him as well. I thought you were the more controlled one."  
  
She snorted indelicately at him. "If you think for even one second that I am ever going to let you hurt her again, you are sadly mistaken. I'm not Batman. I won't run away from you."  
  
It hurt to even say the words. It tore a gaping hole right through her but that was the truth of things. There was bitterness there. She could certainly understand why Bruce had fled but that didn't necessarily mean she could accept it. Or ever had. She realized that she was even probably being unfair. He had his reasons. He had his demons. None of them were exactly rational or sane but in the end he had done what he'd had to do to protect his soul for another day.  
  
"You can't run," he cackled. Then he looked at Reese. "I'm sick of you. Killjoy."  
  
"Reese," Barbara said. "Don't get in to it with him."  
  
"Wasn't going to," Reese replied, wanting nothing more than to knock the green haired freak on his ass. But that wasn't why Barbara had brought him. She had needed his help getting in but she had brought him because she had known that she was far too close to the situation and to what the Joker had done to her to be controlled. That line was just too damn thin. Even for her.  
  
The Joker whistled. He looked towards the guards and then he looked back at them. "It all spins around until it goes boom." And with that he leaned back against a wall, having apparently decided that the interview was over.  
  
Barbara stared at the madman for a moment longer. She could feel rage moving through her. More than a small part of her wanted to revert to her childhood. She wanted to slam her fists against the table. She wanted to demand that he give her what she wanted. The son of a bitch owed her that much.  
  
He didn't care.  
  
Reese touched her arm gently, the heat of his palm bringing her out of her anger fit. The real world was calling. They weren't going to find any answers this way.  
  
She lifted herself back into her chair and then turned it towards the Joker. He was playing passive, trying not to look like he cared. She moved towards him, coming close enough to touch him if she so chose. She could see the guards tense but Reese kept himself in their way.  
  
To be honest, she could have killed him then and there. Sure, she likely would have spent the rest of her life in prison but perhaps it would have been worth it.  
  
But Barbara Gordon was more controlled than that.  
  
It was her blessing.  
  
It was her fucking curse.  
  
She leaned towards him and lowered her voice. "You live because I decide so. If something happens to Helena, if I lose her, I will rip your fucking throat out myself you son of a bitch."  
  
Maybe his eyes bugged, maybe he showed some reaction. Or maybe, as she suspected, he just grinned at her.  
  
She'd never know however because she had turned away from him as soon as she was done speaking. She couldn't bear the idea of seeing him laughing.  
  
"You ready?" Reese asked quietly.  
  
He leaned towards her, his eyes dancing. Her back was too him but he was more than capable of making his point just the same. "I own her. I own the Bat's daughter."  
  
"Yes," she said tersely, hands clenched into fists. "Ready to go now". She wheeled herself from the room, not looking back. It felt almost like running. She didn't care.  
  
Reese turned to regard the Joker for a long moment. He shook his head and was about to follow Barbara down the hall when he heard the Joker whistling. It sounded an awful lot like Pop Goes The Weasel. He turned back to face the green-haired maniac and locked eyes. He felt a chill shudder across his spine. Involuntarily he scratched at the wound on his side. His own personal memento of having encountered the whacked out prince of pain.  
  
"Shh," the Joker said in a low tone. "I've got a secret."  
  
"It's not secret, man, you're a psycho."  
  
"Think bigger Killjoy. Think dead Bat Child."  
  
Reese growled. He actually growled.  
  
The Joker of course just giggled and launched into another verse of the song. Only he was singing it this time.  
  
Reese turned and left the cell.  
  
The Joker just clapped.  
  
He turned towards one of the guards. "Knock knock?"  
  
The guard sighed dramatically but decided to play. "Who's there?"  
  
"Me," the Joker sang out.  
  
"Me who?" the guard asked, bored stupid.  
  
"Me watch little Bat Brat go BOOM!"  
  
The guard startled to attention. He looked around the cell as if there was something he was supposed to see. After realizing that there apparently wasn't, he dropped back into his bored posture. "Crazy loon," he muttered, turning back to the book he had been reading.  
  
The Joker for his part just laughed like the maniac he was.  
  
The man circled around in front of them a few times and then stopped and smiled. He was maybe twenty-five with wild strawberry blonde hair. He looked distracted but that could have easily just been his natural state. He was wearing blue scrubs with a white lab-coat. The only part of the look he was missing was the spectacles.  
  
"Troy Kasper," he said, almost shyly. "Uh, that is Doctor Troy Kasper."  
  
Tim offered a smile in return. He extended his hand and the young doctor shook it firmly. "Tim Drake. And this is my associate Dinah Redmond."  
  
Kasper took her hand as well. He lowered his eyes away from her and managed to stutter out, "Nice to meet you." He took a deep breath and collected himself. "Uh, um, what brings you to S.T.A.R?"  
  
"Oracle."  
  
Kasper smiled, this time a full one. When he replied, it was with great fondness. "Ah, Oracle. And what, pray tell, does the good lady need from us?"  
  
Dinah tilted her head slightly to the side. She'd definitely have to check into this part of the great and wise Oracle. She wondered if even Helena knew about Barbara's near notoriety outside of New Gotham.  
  
"We're running into a bit of a problem with a drug you guys may have tested out not long ago. One the Joker may be using," Tim offered.  
  
"I heard they had the Joker in custody," Kasper said as he led the twosome through several sets of extremely thick lead-lined metal doors. They went under a red laser grid and then stepped behind another bleeping array of lights. Kasper smiled when he saw Dinah watching it all with incredulity. "Some of our work is very very important. I can't stress that enough. If it were to get into the wrong hands, no telling what could happen. Hence all the protective buffers," he explained.  
  
"Got it," Dinah said with great amusement. It was all so surreal and that was saying a lot for a meta.  
  
"They did," Tim said, "But this drug, I'm not sure it matters where he is."  
  
"Alright, you got me, which one?" Kasper asked as he led them into a conference room. In the middle of the room was a large steel table. There were chairs all around it. Leather. Very expensive.  
  
Kasper seated himself at the head of the table. There was a laptop in front of him. He flipped it open and the screen blipped to life. He typed several letter and the computer beeped. Presumably he'd gained access to the network.  
  
"UX40."  
  
Kasper clicked a hand against his forehead. "Ah of course. I'm just reading the email from Oracle right now. I've been working on other stuff. Uh, for Beast Boy."  
  
Dinah lifted her eyebrow. Tim waved her off. "I'll explain later." To Kasper he said, "Barbara said you worked on the studies for it?"  
  
"Right. Yes. I did. Hang on, let me bring up the file. Though I don't really need it; no forgetting this one."  
  
"Why's that?"  
  
"I've seen a lot of crazy things but a drug that forcibly opens up the psychic wavelength is a new one. It doesn't just open a dormant door; it tears a hole through the fabric of the brain. It creates a wavelength. Several of our test subjects died in the lab in the aftermath of the drug. To my knowledge the FDA never reported that."  
  
"Why not?" Tim asked.  
  
"Well, because the only patients who died were metas or people with less than human physiology. In fact for more humans, the drug worked as advertised. It allowed doctors to go in and remove unwanted memories. War veterans who had murdered whole villages could remove that from their brain with only three treatments. The worst of the human symptoms was persistent headaches and loss of consciousness due to emotional response. It...it...it in effect whacked out the memory part of the brain."  
  
"So it erased it?" Dinah asked.  
  
"Exactly," Kasper said. He turned his laptop around towards Dinah and Tim. There was a picture of a human brain on the screen. It was cut into several shaded quadrants. "Right here is where memories are stored in the human brain." He pointed to one of the sectors. "This drug allowed easy access. Problem is, we found out that the drug doesn't allow for rewriting."  
  
"I don't follow," Dinah murmured, eyes still on the computer rendering of the brain.  
  
Tim laughed. "You know how Helena likes to download porn on to Oracle's computer?"  
  
"Well I didn't until recently but ok, go on," Dinah said with a smile.  
  
"Well, she wants to get rid of it before she's caught so she deletes it. The info is gone and she can write something over the top. Save something else in that space."  
  
"Excellent, Tim, "Kasper said, nodding emphatically. "And yes, exactly. Problem is, we discovered that the drug didn't just erase the data; it destroyed the proverbial drive. It wasn't just memory loss; it was brain damage. The FDA immediately denied the application the moment they received the study. Unfortunately it had already been leaked to the black market. I hear there is a fairly fast moving trade community for it though I'm not sure why."  
  
"So let me get this right, any memories removed with the help of this drug are unrecoverable?" Dinah asked.  
  
"Right. Gone for good," Kasper replied.  
  
"But for metas, it also kills them?"  
  
"It seems to have an extremely violent reaction. In most of our human subjects, they experienced blackouts. Upon study, we determined that they were caused anytime the person was trying to access the part of the brain that was...damaged."  
  
"So like a war vet meeting up with his old buddies. They talk about the old times and he has an attack?" Tim put in.  
  
"Exactly. His brain can't handle it. See, all the proper paths to the memory are there but the destination isn't. It caused a chemical reaction. Like an emergency shutdown."  
  
Okay," Dinah said slowly. "And metas?"  
  
"We found that the drug attempted to rewrite the entire brain. Not a full initialize and erase mind you but it tried to re-path everything. It pretty much caused, if you'll excuse the on-going analogy, a full crash of the brain."  
  
"So everything was more severe?"  
  
"Right. With humans, they only went into emergency shutdown mode when the pathways were triggered. It was actually possible that with a more remote memory, the subject would never experience one of the blackouts because they'd never attempt to call up the memory. With metas, we found that any severe emotional reactions triggered the shutdown mechanism. Unfortunately these constant upheavals eventually lead to a full system collapse. We lost every single meta test subject."  
  
"Shit," Dinah said plainly. "Then we have a problem."  
  
"I see that," Kasper said, eyes back on his screen. "I'm reading Oracle's email. I've never met Huntress but she's been mentioned to me a time or two."  
  
"Any way to help her?" Tim asked, his face drawn and serious.  
  
"Well, what you're doing right now is good. Having the mental block in place means that no one can further aggravate her."  
  
"You don't know Hel...Huntress," Dinah said, shaking her head. "Finding a Pop- Tart with a broken corner can significantly piss her off."  
  
Kasper grimaced. "Ah, I see your point." He tapped his fingers against the table. "Well, we have a couple options. I'll get the lab working. When research on UX40 stopped, we'd already started putting something together to halt the effects. I mean no telling what damage it's already done but right now, it's not deadly. If it continues to spread, it will be. If we can stop it right where it is, that'll be something."  
  
"You said we have options," Dinah asked. She desperately wanted to get up and scream but she knew better. She had to be an adult now.  
  
"Right. Well, one, you can put her in a coma. She won't have any bad reactions which should stop the spread of the drug."  
  
"She hasn't had any severe reactions in about a week," Dinah noted for him. "I mean since they actually drew her into that dream world. Did Oracle tell you about that?"  
  
Kasper nodded. "It's one of the known side-effects. One of our doctors learned that through the psychic wavelength that had been ripped open by the drug, someone with the ability to enter or board that open connection could do so at will. Another something that wasn't exactly easy to report to the FDA."  
  
"So why hasn't she been having the reactions?"  
  
"It's possible her body has adapted. When people have emotional reactions, their body receives signals. If your friend gets angry often enough, her body may have to started to divide the signals into different camps."  
  
"Turned on. Devious. Annoyed. Pissed. Seriously pissed. Gonna rip your fucking head off pissed?" Tim asked with a grin.  
  
Dinah snorted. "That's about right."  
  
"Exactly. All the signals in her body may be only responding to a few of those responses. Probably the last two. If she's just been mildly emotional, she's probably fine. I'm guessing the likeliness of that lasting is..."  
  
"Slim to non-existent," Dinah put in.  
  
"Got it."  
  
"So you said coma," Tim prompted. "What else? I mean, I just don't see her being willing to be put under. That's not like her at all."  
  
"Well the next major step is, you need to find out who the meta is who is actually hacking in. Once you disrupt him, you'll ease a great deal of stress off of her."  
  
"Isn't my firewall thingy doing that anyways?" Dinah asked.  
  
"Yes and no. I mean it's certainly helping but now you're several miles away from her so the strength of it is questionable. Also, any supernatural creature experienced enough to dial up into someone's head also knows how to get past protective measures. It's only a matter of time before he figures out how."  
  
"So I should get back to her?"  
  
"No, stick around. We'll start working on the antidote immediately. It's certainly not the first time we've worked with our backs to the wall. I think the JLA rather prefers us in that position. We just need time. We need to buy your friend time. That said, when we do find the cure, we'll need you guys to rush it back to her. There won't be time to wait for you to drive two hours from New Gotham. And then back again."  
  
"Right," Dinah said dully, dropping back against the seat. She looked at Tim. "I'm out of the fight."  
  
"Don't think that," he said softly. "We're only the most important part of the fight. We're the damn cavalry."  
  
Dinah laughed. "Okay." She stood up. "I'm gonna call Ba...Oracle and let her know what we know."  
  
"Sounds good," Tim said.  
  
Kasper nodded slowly. "And I guess that means off to the lab go I." He stood up then. "I'll check in as soon as I know anything."  
  
"Thanks," Dinah said. She paused a beat. "And Doctor?"  
  
He turned. "Hm?"  
  
"Thank you."  
  
He touched her face and she shook violently.  
  
"You've returned to me," he said. "Oh I missed you so. I just want to pet you and love you and eviscerate you." He grinned at her, his words all said in the exact same sing-song tone.  
  
She was lying on the ground, her bare flesh touching what felt like hard steel. She was naked, she could tell that much. Idly she wondered who was controlling the dream. If he was, how could he possibly know what she looked like unclothed?  
  
He bent over her and traced a hand across her skin. She tried to tear away from him. Away from his eyes. Away from his God-awful touch. She felt so cold and disgusting. So vulnerable. It was the true meaning of the word violated.  
  
"This is a nightmare," she gasped out. She found it amazingly hard to breath, which didn't make sense at all. It was just a dream after all. Just a bloody dream.  
  
He shook his head, looking disappointed. "You know better. You thought you could keep me out. I don't like that." He sat down Indian style next to her. "I was hurt by that. I feel hurt by your rejection of me."  
  
"If I were you, I'd go see a shrink," she spat out. "I hear you're fucking mine."  
  
He slapped her and it actually hurt. She tried to lift her hand up to her cheek but he caught it in his own. She grunted in protest as he squeezed it hard. She remembered how he had snapped it like a twig not long ago.  
  
"Helena Kyle," he said, shaking his head dramatically. "It would have been easier if you'd just accepted your fate. I gave you an easy way out."  
  
"I didn't like your terms," she replied, tearing away from her. She curled herself into a ball. Normally she wouldn't have cared who was staring at her body, after all she was very proud of hers. His eyes however felt horribly dirty. Vile.  
  
Like rats crawling over her.  
  
She shook again under the imagery.  
  
He caught her chin and lifted it. He looked deep into her eyes, his painted smile thinning into a grotesque sneer. "When you see the Bat in hell, make sure he knows what I did to his little girl." He reached forward and licked her face. "In detail."  
  
She felt his hand trail down her skin, leaving behind a trail of rot in its wake. Dream or otherwise, it felt horrifyingly real. She felt his fingers dance over her flesh, stopping only to fondle her breast. She gasped both in pain and horror as he touched her in a way that had always been a pleasant thing for her.  
  
Not anymore.  
  
His intentions were very clear.  
  
Sp perversely clear.  
  
She felt tears streak down her face as he continued his lewd molestation of her naked form. He looked up at her and into her eyes, the red smile on his face expanding.  
  
She screamed.  
  
"Grab her legs!" Barbara screamed over at Reese. "Damn it, Reese, sit on her."  
  
The handsome young detective blinked. He studied her face looking for a sign that she was joking. When he saw none, he did as he was told to do. He lifted his large frame up and laid himself down atop of Helena Kyle, pining her small body to the bed.  
  
They had returned to the Clocktower only minutes earlier to find Helena in the middle of what looked like a nasty nightmare. She was screaming and appeared to be weeping. All at the same time. Alfred had told them that she'd been like this for almost ten minutes and that he hadn't been able to bring her out of it. The old man looked scared to death.  
  
"I said sit on her not lay on her," Barbara said, wheeling over to them. They were in Helena's room. According to Alfred she had wanted to lie down not long after they had left for the prison. Exhaustion and fatigue had come over her quickly and she'd been out within minutes.  
  
"Sorry," Reese muttered, though he wasn't. The irony of this being the closest he'd ever gotten to Helena wasn't lost on him.  
  
Barbara placed a hand to Helena's forehead. "She's burning up." She turned to Alfred. "There's a vial of blue liquid on the upper counter in the lab. Get me that and a needle."  
  
He never hesitated, fleeing the room like a bat out of hell. So to speak anyway.  
  
"What are you giving her?" Reese asked, working his ass off to stay atop her. She was bucking him like a bronco. Under better circumstances, it all really would have been a turn-on. Right now he just felt sick to his stomach.  
  
"A drug that will completely knock her out. Out and away from REM sleep. Somehow he's gotten back in. The firewall is down."  
  
Alfred returned, holding out the requested items. Barbara took them from him quickly and filled the hypodermic needle. She inserted it into Helena's neck, not wanting to waste time looking for another vein. She emptied the entire plunger, watching the blue liquid flow out of it.  
  
After about two minutes, Helena stopped shaking. Reese waited a few seconds longer and the finally dismounted. He let out a breath of caught air. "Damn," he said. He placed his palm against Helena's cheek and wiped away the tears that had spilled against her skin.  
  
Barbara nodded. "Oh yeah. We're in trouble."  
  
She was about to say more when she heard a loud beep from the front room. Ten seconds passed and then Dinah's voice filled the room. "Barbara? Are you there? I have some information."  
  
Barbara exchanged a look with Reese and Alfred. Sighing dramatically she said, "About damn time."  
  
END CHAPTER 5 


	6. 6

Barbara paced around in a circle. After almost an entire minute, she came to a stop in front of Helena's bed. "I say we put her under." She looked across at Reese and Alfred who were both watching her with entirely too much intensity.  
  
Reese shook his head. "She needs to be able to fight. This is her fight."  
  
"No, it's mine," Barbara insisted.  
  
"No offense, Barbara, I know you have history with this maniac and I know he's hurt you badly but I think this is all about her family. Her father. Her mother. Her. He won't stop until he is stopped," Reese replied.  
  
"She could die, Reese." She looked desperately to Alfred. "Tell him."  
  
The old butler was quiet for several seconds. Then finally he said softly," I believe that she should have the right to fight for herself."  
  
"Alfred, I can't lose her."  
  
"You must trust in her."  
  
"She's hurt," Barbara insisted. "He's hurt her. If we let her fight, if we don't put her in a coma, he could kill her. This could kill her. She might not ever have a chance to fight back."  
  
"But that's my choice," Helena murmured from behind them. Groggily she pushed herself up so that she was leaning against the pillows instead of lying flat. "And I am going to fight him."  
  
"Helena," Reese said, crossing the room quickly. He sat down next to her and placed a hand on her forehead. "Are you okay?"  
  
She frowned at him. Lifting her hand up to catch his, she squeezed his palm and then pushed him away. "Fine. I am fine. And he is never hurting me again."  
  
"The dream?" Barbara asked. "What happened?"  
  
Helena looked up at her with naked blue eyes. There was so much pain in there but there was also something new and raw. It looked like hatred.  
  
"He tried to rape me," Helena said simply. "He didn't succeed."  
  
Barbara shook. Her entire body convulsed violently and she reached out to grab the side of her chair just for balance. She felt her throat constrict harshly and her stomach rolled. She tried to open her mouth to speak but nothing came out but a choked gasp.  
  
"Baby," Reese murmured, eyes wide. He shook his head, desperately trying to understand but failing on all counts. It just wasn't something that a man like Jesse Reese could ever even begin to comprehend.  
  
She patted his hand. "It was just a dream, Reese."  
  
He looked over at Barbara who was still gaping like a cut fish. She looked like she had just watched someone be eviscerated in front of her. She was horrified.  
  
"Yes," Reese started, knowing that he should say something else but finding that his words were failing him.  
  
After all, what exactly was there to say to someone who had almost been dream raped by a maniac?  
  
"I'm okay," she insisted. "I'm just done. I'm just done with it. No more lying down and no more playing games. We end this." She pushed herself out of the bed. She wobbled but held her ground. Her legs were still unsteady and she still wasn't ready to go into battle but the coldness in her eyes plainly said that she didn't really care about her limitations; she'd find another way.  
  
"Miss Helena perhaps you should stay down," Alfred said, voice soft. The same terror was in his eyes. Oh God how this must have been déjà vu for him. He'd watched the Joker try several times before to destroy Bruce Wayne.  
  
Now it looked like the green haired freak might even be succeeding with Bruce's daughter.  
  
"No," Helena said. "Barbara, we need to find out who this meta is whose helping the Joker out. I want him the fuck out of my brain."  
  
Barbara nodded slowly but it was clear that she still hadn't come to terms with Helena's rather unemotional admission about what had occurred in her dream world. Idly Reese wondered what bothered Oracle more; that Helena had almost been sexually assaulted there or that she seemed nonplussed by it. He figured it was probably a little of both and something that seemed more personal but he couldn't quite get a handle on whatever that was.  
  
"Uh, Troy, that is Dr. Kasper sent me an updated list of known metahumans. Hopefully our guy is on there," Barbara finally managed, her voice a bit heavy. She sounded strange, kind of like she was talking through a mouthful of marbles.  
  
"Good," Helena said. "Reese, he has something else planned. He has some kind of fail-safe. I'm not sure what it is there but he's too confident not to have one. Pick up Quinzell. I think it's high time my bitch psych and I have a little discussion."  
  
"I assume I don't need to remind you about the illegality of false imprisonment. I mean we don't officially have a warrant for her," Reese informed her.  
  
Helena turned her head slightly so that Reese could see the coldness of her blue eyes. The only emotion he could see was rigid anger. And if looks could kill he'd have been dead the moment their eyes met. "You're right Jesse, you don't have to remind me. And when I'm done, I wouldn't worry about Harley bitching about her civil rights."  
  
He opened his mouth to say something to her although he wasn't sure what. Anything. This coldness in her scared the hell out of him. Usually she was a woman on the edge of her emotions but there was always something dancing. Something beautiful and exciting. This was different. This was ugly and dark.  
  
Not that he blamed her. More than a small part of him wanted to march right down to the prison himself. The visual he had in his head wasn't pretty. His dad would have been proud.  
  
No, scratch that, Al Hawke would have been fucking ecstatic if he knew that his only son was having mental images of torturing and brutalizing another human being.  
  
If the Joker could ever be called that which was something of a stretch.  
  
"Okay," Reese said, finally relenting. "You don't go far though. You're in no condition to be out and about."  
  
"I know that," she reminded him. "Not quite ready for the ten kilometer am I. I'll be waiting for you to return."  
  
"Okay," he said. He turned to Barbara. "I assume you want her blindfolded?"  
  
"I wouldn't worry about that," Helena drawled. "She won't be capable of finding her way back when I'm done."  
  
"Helena," Barbara warned, her voice low. Then she looked at Reese who had the strangest look on his face. It looked like fear. He was horrified by how everything was unfolding. Horrified and scared out of his mind. She could relate. "Yes. Blindfold her. And cuff her."  
  
"Will do," he murmured. He shot a look back at Helena and then quickly moved away.  
  
"He's scared of me now," Helena noted, her eyes tracking Reese all the way to the elevator. "He thinks I'm different and he doesn't like it."  
  
"He's worried about you," Barbara corrected. "We all are." She wheeled over to Helena and placed a hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "You're not okay. Don't even pretend you are. You couldn't be."  
  
Helena shifted her eyes so as to meet Barbara. She saw the same thing Reese had and involuntarily she shivered. "I am. He won't ever hurt me again. Even if he lives." Then she smiled but somehow it was an ugly expression. "Besides Barbara, it's just sex anyways."  
  
Barbara Gordon nearly seized. Her brain whirled like the diseased hard drive of a computer for several seconds as she tried to process what Helena had just said to her. She shook her head urgently. "No, no, no."  
  
Helena didn't relent. Her eyes didn't soften and her posture remained as easy as it had been before. She seemed calm and unflustered but Barbara could still see the visible signs of recently shed tears on Helena's cheeks. "It's okay, relax. I'm okay. It was just a nightmare. I've had bad nightmares before. I'm okay."  
  
Barbara looked desperately at Alfred. He just shrugged, his body language showing that he matched her frustration. The words were simply impossible to come by.  
  
"Helena, please. It's not just sex," Barbara insisted, wheeling herself to the younger woman's' side.  
  
"You're right," Helena said nodding. "Because it never happened. It's not anymore real than his fake little world that he set up for me. It doesn't mean anything. Besides, he didn't win anyways. You got me out of there first."  
  
Barbara swallowed hard, hating herself for having to push the subject. "Do you remember how it felt? What it felt like? What you were thinking when you thought he was going to do it and you weren't going to be able to stop him?"  
  
Helena turned to face her and a look of rage passed through her. Her eyes narrowed into impossibly cold slits as she regarded her mentor with nothing but sheer hatred. For a few moments she was little more than the embodiment of fury.  
  
"No," Helena finally spat out, eyes still snapping blue fire. "I felt nothing. I feel nothing. I just want this over."  
  
And with that she turned and walked stiffly out of the lab. Her gait was awkward and unsteady but her pain and anger kept her upright. Somehow it was even so severe that it was fighting off the dehabilitating effects of the drug in her system; she was still conscious. Or maybe she really was so emotionally cold that even her neural pathways didn't know what to make of what was going on.  
  
"Alfred," Barbara started. "Please tell me that this is all a horrible nightmare. Tell me he didn't...tell me he didn't...what he almost did..."  
  
The old butler paused for a long moment, lost in his thoughts. He finally said simply, "If I could, I would. But we both know how much of her life Miss Helena already lives in her mind and so for her I fear that it was very real indeed."  
  
"I knew you were going to say that," Barbara replied as she slumped back into her chair. "Now what?"  
  
"Focus on the now. Remove the immediate threat and then worry about her mental wellbeing after the fact," Alfred suggested. "I don't see as we have any other option."  
  
"No," the beautiful redhead who called herself Oracle murmured. "No I imagine not." She reached back to a stack of printouts that was neatly organized and settled in the printer tray. "You take the top half and I'll take the bottom. I sent part of it to Tim to go through. There's just too damn many."  
  
"These are?"  
  
"The lists of metas that Troy from S.T.A.R. sent over. We're looking for one with the ability to communicate telepathically."  
  
Alfred nodded. He took the first half of the stack and then settled into a chair next to the formerly occupied desk. Barbara took the other pile, sighed deeply and then began to sift through them.  
  
It was going to be a long night.  
  
She stared up into the bathroom room and glared back at the pale woman looking out at her. The girl on the other side looked frightened and weak. That wouldn't do. Lifting her left hand up to her cheek, she began to scratch at the scar of the letter J that was there. She tore at it with her nails until the flesh finally gave way and blood began to flow down and across her skin.  
  
She didn't stop there.  
  
She continued ripping away at her skin, needing the scar to be gone, willing to have anything else there in its place.  
  
Including bone.  
  
She refused to be marked by him.  
  
Not by him.  
  
"Helena," he said, his voice booming in her ears.  
  
She spun around, eyes wide and near to crazed.  
  
"You're not real," she hissed, still turning in a circle. She saw a flash of color and spun towards it.  
  
He was standing in the mirror; hands on both shoulders of the pale girl that looked so much like her. Only she was naked now.  
  
Naked and trembling.  
  
So fucking weak.  
  
"I'm real," he promised her. Then he lifted up his hand and she saw that he was holding a pistol in his white-gloved palm. She remembered the gun; he had put it in her mouth when he had first captured her. He had fired it and she had tasted what she could only guess was spoiled milk.  
  
"I'm not scared of you," Helena threw at him. "She is. I'm not. Never again."  
  
He laughed at her. His eyes danced. He knew she was lying. He could see her pain. "She is you," he grinned, nearly delirious in his delight. He waved the gun at her. "Soon."  
  
"Soon what?" she growled. "Soon you'll be checking into hell?"  
  
He just laughed and repeated his warning. "Soon."  
  
And with that he was gone.  
  
The girl in the mirror however remained. Only she was dressed again but she was trembling like a small child. Blood streaked down her face and mixed with tears.  
  
Tears she couldn't remember crying.  
  
Helena fell to the ground.  
  
She felt her butt thud hard against the tile and her legs screamed in agony beneath her. She knew that they were far from healed but she found that she didn't really give a damn.  
  
If he won, it didn't really matter which parts of her were working and which were not.  
  
In the end, it would all be the same.  
  
Into the dirt and six feet deep.  
  
She wanted to cry, wanted to weep. She wanted to let it all go. To pretend that what he had tried to do to her wasn't tearing a hole in her a mile large was just a joke. And he was the one telling it.  
  
"No," she growled, anger setting her jaw again. She knew that she should let the pain flow through her, let it out.  
  
But that would make her the girl in the mirror.  
  
And she could never be that.  
  
God never.  
  
Standing up with all of the strength she still had left in her, she walked back over to the mirror. "I'm in control, not you. Me. Not you." She jabbed at the frightened girl who looked like a child. She saw her jab back only she didn't look so threatening. She looked like she was pretending.  
  
"Helena?"  
  
Her head snapped around and she looked sharply at the bathroom door. The voice was coming from the other side. After a long moment of confusion, she realized whom it belonged to.  
  
Reese. Jesse Reese.  
  
"In a moment," she said gruffly. "I'll be out in a moment."  
  
"Okay," he said. He was much closer now. Probably even on the other side of the mirror. "Are you alright?"  
  
"Fine," she replied. "Just...I'll be out in a sec."  
  
"Sure."  
  
She heard his footfalls as he moved away and for a moment she wanted to scream at him. She wanted to tell him to stay, wanted to beg him to hold her. Wanted to plead for him to take the memories away. To make it all just disappear into the night. But that wasn't something that Huntress could do.  
  
No only the girl in the mirror would do that. Helena Kyle. Not Huntress.  
  
She looked back towards the mirror and saw that blood was starting to drip down the girls' face. "What did you do to yourself?"  
  
She opened the medicine cabinet and withdrew the first aid kit that was always kept in there. It was a simple one with basic supplies but it would do fine. The wound looked bad but a few strips of gauze would likely clean it up nicely.  
  
"Everything will be fine," Helena assured the girl in the mirror. "So stop your whining and cowboy up."  
  
She saw the girl firm up her lip and tighten her body, like she was channeling her resolve. The look there said she'd damn well try to get strong. To fight. It was the least she could do.  
  
Huntress. Not Helena.  
  
"Well done," she commented. "Well done."  
  
"Anything?" Dinah asked, glancing over at Tim Drake. He was sitting in one of the chairs, looking thoroughly frustrated. His fingers were dancing over the keyboard of one of the computers. He had been at it for almost two hours already, stopping only occasionally to take a sip out of the Mountain Dew can that was settled next to his left hand.  
  
"Not so far. But this is only a third of the file. Barbara and Alfred have the rest. I'm seeing a lot of metas that have mental powers but none that would...wait...wait a minute..."  
  
"Tim?" Dinah asked, a sense of urgency in her voice. She stood up and walked around to his side of the table. She leaned over his shoulder to look at what he was seeing. "Who's that?" she asked, pointing at the picture of a half-bald man. The guy had strange eyes. One blue and one green. The green one looked like it was fake but it was hard to tell. Even the photo made the man look nuts.  
  
"Jared Kelly AKA Mindtrip. File says he used be a Covert Ops agent for the CIA. When he was in his mid twenties anyways. He got in trouble when he started trying to psychically coerce agents into murdering other agents and so on. Sounds like he was trying to start his own little war. The government thinks he was trying to hijack Project Third Eye."  
  
"Project Third Eye?"  
  
"Oh it was some test thing they were doing a few years back to see if certain individuals with proven psychic ability could search out and apprehend individuals about to commit a crime. You know the ultimate in Big Brother. It was taken apart after they realized how easy it would have been to tamper with. Kelly's file says he was believed to be intentionally driving the telepaths in the test insane. All sorts of violent images. Two of them committed suicide before they realized that the project had been hijacked. It was closed down not long after."  
  
"Yikes."  
  
"Yeah, yikes in a big way."  
  
"How do we know this is our guy?"  
  
"Well, for one he used to be housed in the exact cell where the Joker is now. For two his shrink is Dr. Quinzell and for three, he's been in a coma ever since the Joker arrived at Arkham."  
  
"I don't get it. If he's our guy then how?"  
  
"Don't know exactly but somehow they're using him to get in. Hell he probably doesn't even know what he's doing."  
  
"So if we disconnect him, then they lose their connection to Helena?"  
  
"Works in theory," Tim said nodding. "But before we go jerking people's life support system, I'd like to know the hows and the whys."  
  
"Are they all that important?"  
  
"Sure they are. If we're gonna keep the Joker from hurting Helena again, then we need to make for damn sure that he can't do it and the only way we can is by knowing how he did in the first place. I mean, somehow or another, this Mindtrip guy is creating enough of a psychic gateway for the Joker to be able to climb through at will."  
  
"Way over my head, Tim."  
  
"Pretty much over mine too babe," Tim admitted. "Which is why it's time to turn this over to the great and all knowing Oracle."  
  
"So is this our guy then?"  
  
Tim thought for a long moment. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. Finally he said, "Yeah. This is our feller."  
  
"Okay, I'll call Barbara again."  
  
"What did you do to yourself?" Barbara demanded, wheeling over towards where Helena was leaning against the wall. The younger woman was barely standing on her own, allowing the smooth hard surface to keep her upright.  
  
"Nothing. Accidentally cut myself," Helena murmured, her fingers reaching up to graze the gauze bandage on her cheek.  
  
"You're bleeding," Barbara insisted, grabbing Helena's wrist. She turned it sharply inwards so as to keep the girl from pushing her away. "What did you do to yourself?"  
  
"Nevermind. Is Quinzell here?"  
  
"Yeah," Reese said from the doorway. "I have her tied up in the kitchen. Are you sure you can do this. I'm not gonna let you kill her."  
  
"How much faith you have in me, Detective," Helena muttered, shaking her head. "Besides, she's not the one I want to kill. Just maim a little."  
  
"Helena," Barbara said, still holding her wrist. "I don't think is a good idea."  
  
"Miss Barbara?" Alfred said, entering the room. "Miss Dinah and Master Tim are on the phone. They have news."  
  
Barbara looked at Alfred for a moment and then back at Helena. She looked like she wanted to say something but the words wouldn't come. Finally she dropped Helena's wrist. "Reese, go with her."  
  
"I planned on it," he assured her.  
  
"Good. I'll be there in a moment."  
  
"We won't be waiting," Helena replied. She was smiling but it wasn't a jovial one. There was anger dancing wickedly in her eyes. She was more dangerous than Reese had ever seen her.  
  
And that was saying a hell of a lot.  
  
"You ready for this?" he asked, positive that he wasn't.  
  
"You betcha," she said. "Let's dance."  
  
"Good work guys," Barbara commented, eyes locked on the computer screen in front of her. She had the police file of the villain known as Mindtrip up on the screen. He'd had quite an interesting criminal career until agents from the very same program that he'd been hacking had finally stopped him. "How are you holding up Dinah?"  
  
"I'm fine," the blonde came back. "I don't like being out of the battle."  
  
"There's no battle...at least not quite yet," Barbara assured her. "And besides, your role is just as important. Even if we stop Mindtrip, she still has that drug in her system."  
  
"Is she doing okay?" Dinah asked.  
  
Barbara paused for a moment, wondering if she should tell Dinah the truth. Finally, reluctantly, she did. "No. No, she's not."  
  
"What do you mean?" Dinah demanded, clearly agitated. "I should be there helping you guys out."  
  
"There's nothing you can do here, Dinah. Trust me, we need you there."  
  
"Are we short on time Babs?" Tim asked, concern peppering his tone.  
  
"I think so. Look, we have it covered from this side. Reese and I will head over and try to figure out what to do about Mindtrip. Keep the pressure on Troy...I mean Dr. Kasper. We need that antidote."  
  
"No worries," Tim assured her. "And Barb, when this is over, you're going to have to tell me how you and Dr. Kasper know each other so well. Tell me I don't have to tattle on you to Dick."  
  
Barbara snorted loudly. "Later on that okay?" She shook her head. "Good luck guys."  
  
The blonde woman looked up at her former patient and snarled. Then as if she had reminded herself of whom she was supposed to be to Helena Kyle, she changed her expression so that she was instead offering the brunette a strange twisted smile. "Helena," she cooed. "What brings me to you?"  
  
Helena took a step closer to the woman who called herself Doctor Harleen Quinzell. "I know who you are you psycho bitch," she hissed at her. "I know what you've done to me."  
  
Harley clapped her palms together. Her hands were cuffed in front of her but she still had some movement available to her. "Well bravo then. Frankly I think it took you entirely too long anyways. I mean come on Helena, how hard is it? It's not exactly like my real name is all that different."  
  
"Yeah well, mistakes happen. I can promise you that it won't happen again."  
  
"Why?" Harley said, licking her lips almost in anticipation. "Are you going to kill me?" Then she sighed dramatically. "No, you're one of the boring good guys. And worse, you were trained by the great Barbara Gordon. That's too bad really, watching you kill would have been delicious."  
  
"Even if I was killing you?" Helena asked, sarcasm dripping from her words. Her eyes were cold and angry but there was something in her posture that seemed to be enjoying the power she was holding over Harley. Or at least that power that she perceived she had.  
  
"All that much better to know that it would be my death that would be your rebirth," Harley said with a smirk.  
  
"Enough of this," Reese growled as he moved between the two women. He could see that Helena was exerting an unnatural amount of energy in order to keep herself standing up straight. He could also see that her legs were starting to tremble. Strong as she was getting, her limbs were still very weak and unable to endure massive amounts of strain. She was still healing.  
  
"Ooh, is this the police officer that you keep mentioning? He is handsome I must admit," Harley drawled, eyes locked on Helena's. It was a game and they both thought that they were winning it.  
  
"What did you do to me?" Helena snapped.  
  
"Oh I mind-fucked you baby," Harley said with a large smile. "Which I must say was a lot easier than one would think. Though you did give me a run for my money in figuring out that you were the one screwing up all of my plans."  
  
"Oh so sorry about that," Helena muttered. "What did you do to my head?"  
  
"I thought you said you had it all figured out?" Harley asked, mock disappointment in her eyes.  
  
"Answer the question," Helena growled.  
  
Harley bit her lip as if she was trying to think of her response. Several seconds passed before she finally laughed. "Um, no. I don't think so. I think I like you guessing." She grinned. "It turns me on."  
  
Helena narrowed her eyes dangerously. Her eyes glowed for a moment as the rage slid through her blood. She took another step closer to Harley, intentionally moving into her former psychiatrists' personal space. To her surprise the blonde clapped her hands again. "Bitch," she snarled.  
  
"Is this when you threaten me? Promise to hurt me?" Then she lowered her voice. "Or are you going to kiss me?"  
  
Helena reached out and hit her.  
  
Harley slammed backwards in the chair, her face jerking hard to the left as Helena's fist collided with her jawbone. Amazingly, as the woman fell, she was still laughing. The chair cracked against the ground and Harley fell from it, spinning onto her side. The fall didn't seem to stop her mirth.  
  
Hell she was giggling like a damn fool.  
  
Reese reached out his hand to catch Helena but she pushed him away with as much strength as she could muster. She was atop Harley within seconds, her fists flying into the older woman's face. A spray of blood flew upwards, peppering Helena's cheeks.  
  
Harley continued to laugh.  
  
"Helena!" Reese called out, grabbing at her arms. "Huntress!"  
  
"Reese?" Barbara called out as she slid into the room, followed closely by Alfred. She spotted Helena a moment later. "Damn it. Helena, stop it!"  
  
If Helena heard either of them, she didn't show any sign.  
  
Reese moved around to the back of her and lifted her up in the air, her arms still flailing and her legs kicking out. He could see tears on her cheeks as well as blood speckled across her skin. He could see that her eyes while no longer hard cats eyes were icy cold blue. And large as hell.  
  
"Oh don't stop her now, she's just starting," Harley laughed as she pushed herself into the sitting position. Her face was cut and bloody but she was wearing a large smile. There was a purplish mark forming on the side of her jaw and her blonde hair was jutting every which way.  
  
Helena tried to lunge at her again. "I'm going to fucking kill you."  
  
"Doesn't look like it," Harley taunted. Then she looked at Barbara. "Oh the great Barbara Gordon has come to clean up after her messy puppy. Do you know how nauseatingly much I've heard about you? And you're so boring."  
  
It crossed Barbara's mind to beat the living shit out of Harley herself.  
  
Instead she wheeled herself over to where Harley was and bent down towards her. "Laugh it up," she said coolly. "Your life is over. You're going to spend the rest of it in a little cell amusing only your self."  
  
"That's what you think," Harley sang. She looked Barbara straight in the eye and laughed. "You have no idea how little control you have Barbara Gordon. It's all so fleeting."  
  
"Barbara," Reese said from behind her.  
  
She turned slowly, reluctant to put her back to Harley. "What?" she asked tiredly.  
  
"She's out," Reese said, indicating the unconscious woman in his arms. She was lying against him in an awkward manner. He ran his fingers through her hair and adjusted her so that he was cradling her. He used his thumb to wipe away a smear of blood on her cheek.  
  
"Oh that's too bad," Harley giggled. "Looks like it was all too much for her. Poor baby. I guess she's not as strong as she thought she was."  
  
Barbara glanced back at the woman. "Alfred would you do me a favor?"  
  
"Of course," he said, his voice low. He was glaring at Harley, looking quite like he wanted to dropkick the woman himself.  
  
Now that was a visual worth savoring.  
  
"Would you make sure Dr. Quinzell is properly secured? We won't be needing her for a bit but when we do, I want to make sure she's right where we left her."  
  
"Absolutely," Alfred replied quickly. He turned a hard gaze on Harley who just stared back at him passively. She seemed disinterested in him but he knew better. It was all still just a game.  
  
"Good. Reese, carry her to the lab."  
  
He nodded. He curled Helena against his chest and then turned to follow Barbara out of the lab.  
  
Harley smiled up at Alfred as he approached. "You know it's already too late don't you?"  
  
He moved around to the back of her. Noticing that she was bound with a simple pair of cuffs, he began to wrap a rope around her waist and the chair. "For your sake madam, I should hope not."  
  
"For my sake butler baby, it's already too late," Harley snorted. "But Mr. J has it all under control."  
  
"That's it, I'm done with this. I'm putting her under," Barbara hissed as they entered the lab. "If we don't do it, she will die."  
  
"She could die if you put her under," Reese protested.  
  
"She's incapable of not getting emotional or angry and the Joker knows that. It's why he did what he did to her in her dream. Why he..." she stopped suddenly, unable to say the actual word for the madman had tried to do to her young charge. Closing her eyes she muttered, "He's pulling all the strings. I just don't see as we have a choice."  
  
"It's not that I'm disagreeing," Reese said dully. "But how do you know that even a coma will keep him out of her head? How do you know that we're not just trapping her with him? If you put her under, there's no way for her to get away from him. He could finish what he started. And it'll be our fault."  
  
Barbara stopped to consider his words. She was holding a syringe in her hands but could feel it wavering. What if he was right? There really was no way of knowing for certain. It was all just an educated guess to begin with. And the idea of helping the Joker to assault Helena...  
  
"I don't," she finally admitted, her voice unsteady. "But do you have a better idea? Because if you do, Jesse, I'm listening."  
  
He shook his head, baffled by the sudden attitude she was throwing. He knew why she was upset but something still felt off about her reactions. He couldn't quite put his finger on it so he decided to let it pass. "This is all so crazy for me. I don't understand half of this. No, most of this. This world is so strange..."  
  
"If you can't handle it..."  
  
"It's a little too late for that don't you think? I'm in a bit too deep now. No, I'm not going anywhere. I'm just saying that your guess is as good as mine."  
  
She offered him a soft smile and then fell back against her chair. "Reese, I don't know anything for sure. We could be just handing her over to him or we could be saving her life. I don't know. But what I do know is, she's getting worse by the hour. We don't have a lot of time."  
  
She indicated towards one of the machines that was hooked up to Helena.  
  
"Her heartbeat looks fast," Reese noted. "Too fast."  
  
"That's just it," Barbara said softly. "Everything about her right now is too fast. Her entire body is in overdrive. If we don't stop it, she'll eventually just shut down. Even as strong as she is, she can't stop this drug. None of the other metahuman patients were been able to. All we can hope to do is slow it down in order to give Dr. Kasper time to find a cure."  
  
"So you give me an hour," Reese said. "I'll take care of things from my side."  
  
"What? I don't understand what you're getting at?"  
  
"I heard you talking to Dinah earlier. She said you'd discovered who the guy is that's piping the Joker into Helena's dreams. If we can stop the uplink, her dreams won't be a threat to her, right?"  
  
"In theory," Barbara said hesitantly. "But I haven't figured out a way to unhook Mindtrip. As long as he in that coma, the Joker can use him at will."  
  
"You leave that to me," Reese said coldly. "If we take that guy out, we give her at least a fighting chance."  
  
"I'm not sure I like where you're going with this," Barbara said, lifting an eyebrow. Her eyes drifted over to Helena who was whimpering on the bed. She could see that the younger woman looked like she was in the middle of a dream.  
  
"Look at her," Reese instructed. "Now might be the time to put away the superhero handbook and for me to shelve the good boy routine. Now there are ways to save Helena but we may both have to step outside of the lines. And for me, that means using some of my fathers' sources to get this Mindtrip guy brought out of his coma."  
  
Barbara swallowed hard. They really had been brought to desperate measures. Finally, thickly she replied, "Do what you have to do but do it quickly. I'm putting her under in exactly one hour. She's already dreaming right now, I don't see how it makes much difference."  
  
"Wake her up," Reese told her. "Wake her up and keep her up until you hear from me."  
  
Barbara nodded. She hated what this was doing to them all. She knew that Reese had spent most of his life rejecting his father's world. He had railed against it. Hell most of the reason that he had become a cop was to fight back against his fathers' sins.  
  
Things were changing.  
  
And now necessity was demanding that Jesse Reese finally accept the benefits of being Al Hawke's son.  
  
Especially if that meant saving a woman he loved.  
  
"Be quick," she told him. "One hour."  
  
"Good enough," he said. He started towards the door and then stopped and turned back. "We all get ugly sometimes right?"  
  
She paused a beat and then said softly, "Sometimes we all do."  
  
They locked eyes, both seeming to understand what the other was getting at.  
  
Both knowing the extremes they were now willing to go to in order to save Helena Kyle's life.  
  
And both hating themselves for it.  
  
But then, perhaps that was guilt for another day.  
  
"You're like a little dog," he commented, his eyes wandering across her body. "I keep hitting you and you keep returning for more."  
  
"I'm not exactly controlling the game." Helena snorted. "Or trust me, you wouldn't be my idea of a great dream."  
  
He moved towards her, seeming to dance. "I'll always be part of your dreams." He touched her face and she yanked away. He laughed. "Don't pull away from me now. We can still be friends."  
  
She growled at him, her eyes narrowing. "You're sitting in a little cell. You can't touch me. You can't hurt me."  
  
He lifted the gun up and pointed it at her. This weapon was starting to become a reoccurring theme and frankly it was starting to scare her. He was holding it just like someone would a bomb trigger. Like it would do something horrible if he fired it.  
  
But it was just a dream.  
  
Just a damn dream.  
  
"I'm in control," he cackled. "And you're dying."  
  
"I'm alive," she hissed.  
  
"Soon you'll be with her," the Joker giggled.  
  
She felt air wisp past her face and realized that they were no longer in the strange dark room. Instead they were on the street in front of the movie theatre.  
  
And she was watching her mother be murdered again.  
  
"I've seen this all," Helena screamed. "You can't hurt me with this anymore."  
  
"No?" he asked, seeming confused. Then he seemed to brighten. "Ah, yes of course."  
  
The scenery changed again and they were standing in the middle of a cemetery. It was night but she could see men digging graves. Almost involuntarily she felt her feet moving towards one of the empty lots. She looked in and saw a casket at the bottom. She didn't dare ask whom it belonged to.  
  
She needn't have bothered.  
  
The lid of the casket opened and she saw a woman's hand slip out of it. A moment later she saw a face.  
  
Barbara.  
  
She locked eyes with the decayed doppelganger of her mentor. Her mind screamed at her that it wasn't real but she could feel her chest exploding with pain and heartache.  
  
"You did this to me," the Barbara corpse screeched. "You're responsible."  
  
The thing started to walk towards her, hands outstretched.  
  
"No," Helena gasped, stepping backwards.  
  
"And now I'll take you down with me," it continued. "To hell."  
  
Helena tumbled back, her foot hitting against a rock. She felt herself falling before she realized that she was. When she looked up she realized that she was lying in another empty unfilled grave. There was no casket in this one.  
  
"Barbara?" she said, gazing up at the corpse.  
  
It leered at her and snarled. "Your turn," it said as it began to shovel dirt onto her.  
  
"No!" Helena screamed, covering her eyes with her hands. "No please..."  
  
"It's too late," it laughed at her, its voice suddenly morphing into that of the Jokers. "You're already damned for all time."  
  
She felt dirt slap against her face and then everything went dark once more.  
  
Dark and cold.  
  
And the only thing she could hear was him cackling like a mad fool.  
  
He was winning.  
  
She was dying.  
  
END CHAPTER 6: 


	7. 7

"So you want him dead?" Hayden Castle asked, looking hard at the young man that he had grown up with. "That's not like you. I mean, not that I won't do it for you Big J but still..."  
  
"It's hard to explain Haystack," Reese said, gazing across at his old friend. A red light from a neon sign overhead flashed color onto the man's face. It was drizzling out but neither seemed to notice.  
  
They were both too caught up in the past.  
  
It'd been almost a year since he had spent anytime with the boy he had grown up with. They had both been the only sons of major crime lords. The only difference was, Hayden had gone into the family business.  
  
He was a hitman for hire.  
  
It'd been hard to maintain their friendship after that revelation had been made so they had both settled on just keeping their distance from each other. For two old friends who had shared just about everything together, it'd been pure hell.  
  
"So try Jess," Hayden said, winding his fingers through his dark blonde hair. He was tall; maybe six foot four inches. His body was lean and cut though and he might have even been a beautiful man if not for the inch long cut underneath his jaw. Something about one of his hits going bad. Long story and all of that.  
  
"Look, this Jared Kelly guy, I need to know how alive he is. That's why I called you on the way here. I figured you could find out easier than I could."  
  
"Probably true," Hayden nodded. "And yeah, talked to a buddy of mine in the infirmary."  
  
"And?"  
  
"They say the guy is pretty much toast. He has brain activity but in all the wrong places. Don't have a fucking clue what that means," Hayden muttered. He pushed himself away from the hood of his car and crossed over to where Reese was leaning against an alley wall. "So what did you need then?"  
  
Reese took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and exhaled. "Take care of him for me."  
  
"Sure bro," Hayden said, eyes narrowed. "I don't get it though. What's going on with you? What'd this Kelly dude do to you?"  
  
"Not to me exactly..."  
  
"A girl? He fuck a girl of yours?"  
  
"Not exactly..."  
  
"Jesse, you gotta talk to me," Hayden insisted, his tone almost a desperate plea. Reese could hear a Boston accent pushing it's way through; Hayden had spent altogether too much in Massachusetts handling his old man's affairs.  
  
Reese shook his head. "Look, will you help me out or not?"  
  
Hayden nodded. "You have to ask? Of course. Dead right?"  
  
"Can you wake him up?"  
  
"Still trying to be the Boy Scout," Hayden laughed. Then he shook his head. "Expected that of you so I checked. They say no. Fried bacon bro."  
  
"Then yeah," Reese replied thickly. "I don't want to know how...just do it."  
  
Hayden crossed over to Reese and put a hand on his old friends' shoulder. "One of these days, Jess..."  
  
Reese smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. "Yeah, one of these days Haystack."  
  
"We'll sit down and knock some beers and broads huh?"  
  
"Yeah," Reese replied, knowing full well that that day would never come. He rather suspected that he wouldn't want to see Hayden again after all of this was over; wouldn't want to be reminded of what he was capable of. "Hey, do me a favor huh?"  
  
"After all you've done to keep me from being pushed behind bars? Name it."  
  
"Don't let my dad find out. I mean, that I was part...that I..."  
  
"He won't hear it from me," Hayden promised.  
  
"Thanks," Reese said. He put out his hand towards Hayden. Castle looked at it for a long moment and then reached across and embraced Jesse hard.  
  
"Not a fool enough to know that it'll ever be good between us again Jess but I still love you like my brother. Always will."  
  
"Me too Hayden," Reese assured him. "Me too."  
  
"I don't like this," Helena muttered. "I don't want to be put in a coma. I want to fight him. I should have that right."  
  
"I don't disagree," Barbara insisted. "But you are killing yourself. We can't...I won't take that risk."  
  
Helena dropped her head and stared down at the ground. "Figures my attitude would eventually kill me."  
  
"So have you changed your mind about therapy? Are you saying when this is all done I might be able to convince you to actually get a new psychiatrist?" Barbara asked with more than a hint of amusement.  
  
"You're smoking mad crack," Helena snorted. She was sitting up on the bed, swinging her taped legs beneath her. The motion was far from effortless or graceful but it was encouraging just the same.  
  
"Am not," Barbara grinned. Her eyes flashed up to the clock on the wall. Reese had been gone for almost fifty minutes now. She wondered how he was doing.  
  
And what he was doing.  
  
Helena seemed to pick up on her worry.  
  
"How exactly is he going to take out this Mindtrip loser?"  
  
"I don't know," Barbara admitted. "Not sure I want to know."  
  
"So you're not gonna trip about how heroes don't kill and all of that?" Helena queried with great curiosity.  
  
"It's not the same thing," Barbara said. "Technically and medically, Jared Kelly is already dead. The part of his brain that accesses the psychic wavelength is hyperactive but the rest of his brain...well he's brain-dead."  
  
"Sounds like justification to me," Helena noted. "I mean not that I'm objecting and all but...are you really going to be okay with this?"  
  
"He's already dead," Barbara said simply. Then she turned to look hard at Helena. "I'm not losing you."  
  
"Aww," Helena started. "I'm...."  
  
The phone against the wall jingled hard, instantly setting Barbara's nerves on fire. She cursed underneath her breath and then wheeled over to the ringing device. "Reese?"  
  
"Yep," he said, his voice sounding dull and tired. "It's done."  
  
He hung up the phone as soon as the words were out of his mouth. There was a click and then a dial tone sounded on the line.  
  
He was obviously very upset.  
  
She didn't blame him.  
  
She didn't fault him either.  
  
She wheeled back over to a computer and began to type commands into it. The display flashed a few times and then showed a screen that indicated it was the entry database for Arkham.  
  
"Barbara?" Helena asked. "What's going on?"  
  
"He's dead," Barbara replied quietly. She spun the screen to show it to Helena. "Jared Kelly was pronounced dead a few minutes ago. No cause of death yet. It's all pending an autopsy but considering his recent state, one is unlikely."  
  
"Reese killed him?" she asked her mentor, her voice very low.  
  
"No," Barbara said quickly. "I don't think so." She turned to look at Helena. "He was already dead. He had to be stopped."  
  
"You don't have to explain that to me," Helena insisted. "I'm okay with it." She paused. "I just want...I need the two of you to be okay with it as well."  
  
"We will be," Barbara assured her. She leaned over to the table and picked up a syringe. "But now that we know the Joker is out of your mind, I'm putting you under..."  
  
"I don't want to," Helena said, sliding a few inches away from Barbara. "I really don't want to."  
  
Barbara placed a hand on her shoulder. "I know you don't. I wouldn't." She paused for effect. "If I knew another way...I don't. This is all we have. You're killing yourself."  
  
"I can control it..."  
  
"No you can't," Barbara replied. "And frankly, that's what makes you who you are. I'd love it if one day you could learn to focus your anger but having it drives you...it's yours to have. You have a good reason for it now after all he has done to you. I just...we're not playing on an even board..."  
  
Helena held out her arm to her mentor. "I don't like this," she said again. "I should be fighting."  
  
"If this goes well Helena, there will be plenty of time for that later. You'll have plenty of bad guys to pummel, I promise."  
  
Helena smiled. "Then do your worst."  
  
Barbara took a deep breath and then plunged the syringe into her protégé's arm. The girl gasped initially at the pain but then settled back against the bed with her head against the pillow.  
  
She was out seconds later.  
  
Barbara stared down at her for several minutes before she finally wheeled towards the trash. She dropped the syringe into it and closed the lid.  
  
Closing her eyes she whispered to herself, "God forgive us. We had no choice."  
  
Warden George Haven was called down to the containment cell at just after nine that evening. Apparently their most infamous prisoner was putting on quite a scene, as he demanded to see his psychiatrist. Unfortunately nobody could quite locate Dr. Quinzell.  
  
"What's going on?" Haven snapped as he entered the clear glass cell. His eyes immediately drifted over to the madman who was pacing about anxiously, his ruby red lips drawn together in a horrific sneer.  
  
"He's been like this for hours," the guard said, making a twirling motion with his right hand. "Been bitching about needing to see his doc. Says she'll make it all better. I think he's snapped."  
  
Haven snorted loudly. "He did that a long time ago." He frowned as he glanced into the cell. Many years ago he had been a police officer for the Gotham PD on one very cold and rainy evening. That had been the night when Jim Gordon's little girl had been crippled.  
  
That had been the night when the Joker and his minions had killed a lot of good men and woman all in some desperate attempt to be the dominant crime syndicate in Gotham. Even above and beyond the infamous mob family known as the Table.  
  
He had been one of the officers that had finally apprehended the Joker but by then it had been far too late. The damage had been done. To both Jim and Barbara Gordon and to the entire department.  
  
"Sir?" the guard asked, keeping a respectable distance between he and his superior. "Should we call in the quacks from upstairs to straightjacket him?"  
  
Haven pursed his lips, his mind whirling. He wondered sometimes why someone didn't just mine the entire Asylum with explosives and blow it and all of it's psychotic and deranged loons straight to hell. "No," he said softly. "Let him rant. He's not harming anyone. Put plugs in if he's bothering you but just keep an eye on him. If he starts getting physically violent, call Dr. Lowder but other than that, leave him be."  
  
"Yes sir," the guard said, nodding quickly. He moved away from the Warden, crossing over to a card table against the wall. A hand of solitaire was already laid out and waiting.  
  
Haven glanced at his officer and then back at the Joker. The madman walking in angry circles, his hands pulling at his green hair. He kept muttering about some cat that had gotten away. Something about how the cat could never get away.  
  
"Fucking loon," Haven whispered to himself. He shook his head, nodded at his officer and then walked back towards the stairs that he had come from.  
  
Back towards his officer.  
  
Behind him in the cell the Joker spun, his eyes glowing with pure maniacal evil. "Fine then," he said, a chuckle interrupting his words. "Then I guess you'll just die now."  
  
"Where is she?" Reese asked briskly as he entered the Clocktower. The digital clock on the wall said that it was about seven in the morning. That meant that the handsome young cop had been AWOL for over twelve hours. Normally his absence during their time of stress would have irked her but she could tell that he hadn't been sleeping; he looked exhausted and there were marks under his eyes. Under his right arm he was carrying a rather thick folder.  
  
Barbara turned to regard him, offering him a small smile. "I put her under hours ago. I mean I induced a comatose state."  
  
He nodded. "How she's doing?"  
  
"She seems to be fine now. All of her brain functions appear normal and her REM appears to be undisturbed." She chuckled light. "I think she's actually finally resting."  
  
"Good," he said. "Because we have a problem."  
  
She lifted an eyebrow, more in annoyance than shock. "Oh?"  
  
He held up the file he was carrying. "I did some research on our lovely Dr. Quinzell last night. She's been up to some interesting things."  
  
"Namely?" Barbara asked, not terribly in the mood for guessing games.  
  
"Buying strange little explosives for one," Reese replied. He moved to stand next to Barbara and opened the folder. The first paper on the top was a replica of an invoice. The two sheets below the payment record were google.com searches on the product in question. "Now what in Gods' name would someone need an explosive like that for?"  
  
Barbara blinked.  
  
Once. Twice. A third time.  
  
She bent down to examine one of the pictures in the descriptive article and then hissed in frustration. The color photograph was of a small device no larger than a shirt button and just as flat. She could see from the picture that it was actually a computer chip with several circuits running across its small diameter.  
  
The description on it said that it would explode with a vibration. Not a blast but rather a wave of force outwards that would shatter the resistant walls around it. A pulse canon of sorts.  
  
"Fuck," she growled. She slammed her fist into the desk in front of her, the cup of coffee just inches from her hand jumping and then spilling several drops onto the desk. She spun hard in the chair. "Alfred!"  
  
The butler appeared by the door, looking just as weary but still aware. "Shall I get Dr. Quinzell?" It was uncanny how he seemed to know exactly what she needed but in this case it was probably just eavesdropping.  
  
"Oh yes," Barbara bit off. "Bring her please." Alfred nodded and stepped out of the room, heading back into the Clocktower towards the small containment cell down near the base of the massive building.  
  
"So you're thinking the same thing I am then?" Reese asked, eyes on the redhead.  
  
"Depends," she murmured, glancing back down at the papers. She shook her head. "She charged this to her credit card?"  
  
He snorted. "American Express. Villains everywhere know not to leave hell without it."  
  
She chuckled dryly. "That was bad Detective."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"I'm just shocked she did that but I guess she really didn't think she could be caught. This company she bought the chip from, what do they say it can be used for? I mean, what's their announced intent?"  
  
"Isn't that your domain?" Reese quipped. She tossed him a dirty look so he held up his hands in self-defense. "They say it's a testing tool. To duplicate small earthquakes off certain something or other."  
  
"You mean like putting the explosive between two plates, calling the plates..."  
  
He cut her off quickly, "Yeah that. Exactly where you're going. That."  
  
"Sounds like bullshit," she groaned. "Oh man and just when I thought we were actually looking at a little light in this whole thing."  
  
"You and me," Reese said quietly. He dropped back and sat down in the leather recliner that Helena had been using for the last several weeks. He glanced down at his hands, studying the lines on his palms. He rubbed at a tiny scar just under the thumb on his left hand. Nervous habit and all of that.  
  
"Reese," Barbara started, caution in her tone. "Are you okay with what happened to Mindtrip?"  
  
The young man looked up at her with wide dark eyes and she could clearly see that he was not. She could also tell that he had resolved to deal with it. However that need be. "I'll...I'll be fine," Reese started. "He was already dead."  
  
Barbara recognized her own logic and decided not to push the subject; it was something that they would both have to deal with in their own time and in their own way.  
  
"Dr. Quinzell," Alfred announced stiffly from the doorway.  
  
Barbara glanced up, relieved to be brought away from her thoughts about Jared Kelly. She narrowed her eyes when she saw the older blonde woman. The psychiatrist was trying to smile at her but one of the cuts around her lips turned it into an ugly grimace. Her face was covered in nasty bruises and ugly welts. All from Helena's beating the night before.  
  
"Barbara Gordon," Harley cooed. "Good morning. And what is today to be?"  
  
"Today is to be the day you make a choice," Barbara replied sharply, wheeling over to be in front of the psychotic woman.  
  
"Oh? Choice? And what choice would that be? Strawberry jam or grape? Stab or shoot?"  
  
"Arkham or me," Barbara corrected, green eyes suddenly very cold. "When this is all over, I can turn you over to Arkham and you and the Joker can do whatever the hell you want for the rest of eternity or I can keep you down in that cell in the basement rotting away. It's really your choice."  
  
"I'm not scared of you," Harley laughed. "And you wouldn't do that anyways."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"You're too boring. I mean with the being perfect and all." She yawned. "I kept hoping you'd at least slap Helena once in awhile. That at least would have been interesting but no. No, it was always, poor little Helena Kyle is always letting down the great Barbara Gordon."  
  
Barbara reached out and decked her; her closed fist sharply colliding with the blonde's already bruised jaw. The woman hissed in pain, her eyes widening. "Believe me now?" Barbara growled.  
  
"Not quite," Harley said. "But you've got my attention. What is it that you want?"  
  
Reese stepped behind Barbara and handed her the folder. She spun it around and showed the invoice to Harley. "What is this for?"  
  
Harley smiled. Her hands were still bound sharply behind her back but her body was still exhibiting a large amount of language. She still appeared very capable of communicating with her movements. "Oh that," she drawled. "That's for Helena."  
  
Barbara snapped.  
  
She reached forward and grabbed Harley by the collar, jerking the woman towards her. "You stupid bitch I am done with your games. I want the truth and I want it now or some help me God, I will make sure that you breathe, eat and piss from a tube for the rest of your cursed and unnatural life."  
  
Harley's eyes widened. Her mouth fell open and she gaped like a cut fish. Once Barbara tossed her to the ground, she stared up at the redhead. "Now I'm impressed," she said. "Fine then, for what it's worth I'll tell you."  
  
"Harley," Barbara hissed, eyes hard.  
  
"There is an explosive device located in Helena's head. Behind her left ear I believe. I put it there during our last therapy session."  
  
"What will it do to her?" Reese asked, stepping into Harley's field of vision. She looked for a moment like she was going to try to play with him but the creaking of Barbara's wheels made her decided otherwise.  
  
"It'll blow her head up," Harley said with more glee than was necessary. Even for her.  
  
"How?" Barbara growled, her patience thinning to an almost unbearable amount. Her fingers dug into the padding of her chair and she felt her back muscles spasm with the intensity of it all.  
  
Harley shrugged. "I'm not sure on the specifics of it all but I was told that first she'd have horrible mind-blowing headaches, then she'd start to bleed out and then she'd suffer a complete aneurism and die. Or something vaguely like that." She yawned. "I didn't pay much attention past the phrase unbearable agony."  
  
"How do we get the chip out?" Reese queried, eyes on Barbara. He couldn't quite believe that he was having to watch her to make sure she didn't try to kill the shrink. Then again, a very large part of him wanted to do it himself.  
  
"You don't," Harley chuckled.  
  
"There's got to be a way," Barbara hissed.  
  
Harley snorted and then sang out, "May-be. But I'm not telling."  
  
Barbara stretched out her arms to grab at Harley but Reese stepped in her way. He captured one of her palms with her one. "Don't. Won't do any good. And right now we need these hands. We have to get that thing out of her before..."  
  
His words were cut off by a horrific scream from the lab. He looked to Barbara who was wearing a look of sheer panic. He rather imagined that he had the same look on his own face. "Helena," she gasped.  
  
Harley just laughed. "Looks like it's started. Goodbye Helena."  
  
Reese turned back to face the shrink but was beat to the punch by Alfred reaching out and slamming the woman face first into the ground. She grunted and then fell still, dead out. He bent over her and began to tighten the binds, constricting her almost like one would a stuck pig.  
  
"Miss Helena needs us," was all he said as he stared calmly back at the matching shocked expressions that Reese and Barbara were wearing. "She needs us now."  
  
And he was right.  
  
And Helena was still screaming.  
  
END CHAPTER 7 


	8. 8

"Dinah?"  
  
She groaned and sat up, her hand going out to her face. She pushed strands of stray blonde hair away from her eyes and then indelicately mumbled, "Mmm, what? Did I forget to put the toilet seat down again?"  
  
Tim snorted. "I don't want to know. I don't want to know....okay, I so want to know? The toilet seat? I mean, do you pee standing up?"  
  
Dinah blinked and then blushed, red spreading over her pale cheeks. "Tim."  
  
"Yep," he grinned, amused at her discomfort.  
  
"I didn't say that."  
  
"You so did."  
  
She looked around, trying to change the subject. "How long did I sleep?"  
  
"Five hours maybe?"  
  
"Too long," she insisted. "Anything?"  
  
"Yeah, I think so. Dr. Kasper is on his way down now."  
  
"Good. That's good."  
  
"Toilet seat. Talk. Now."  
  
She flipped her hand dismissively. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to let it go she sighed dramatically. "Not the boy's seat, the lid. It's no big deal. There was a time....a couple weeks back...see, Helena likes to sit on the toilet in the morning when she gets ready..."  
  
"Oh no," Tim grinned, seeing where it was going.  
  
Dinah grimaced. "Yeah. She stayed over one night, went in there to get ready and she may have...well she...okay she fell into the toilet." She shook her head. "We had a bit of a yelling match about that."  
  
He slapped the table hard, laughter rolling away from him. Dinah was stunned by the force of it; it was like a tidal wave of mirth. Before she knew it she was laughing with him.  
  
"Oh God," he said, almost near tears. "I am so gonna harass her about that."  
  
"Don't," Dinah insisted, still laughing. "She'll kill me."  
  
"Too bad," he grinned. "That's just...that's priceless. Fucking priceless."  
  
"Am I interrupting?" a voice said from the door.  
  
The two of them turned to see Troy Kasper leaning casually against the doorframe. His hair was mussed and he looked tired but otherwise fully aware. He was holding a small vial in his left hand.  
  
"No," Tim said quickly. "Just a little punchy I think we both are."  
  
"I can imagine," Kasper said as he entered the room. He winked at Dinah who blushed profusely. That just seemed to amuse Tim even more.  
  
"So Doc," she started, tripping over her words. "What do you have for us?"  
  
"The vaccine," he said, pride in his tone. He looked wiped out but he was beaming as he held up the vial with the light purplish liquid in it.  
  
"Really?" Tim asked, standing up. Kasper handed him the vial and Tm turned it over in his palm. "Are you sure?"  
  
"Positive. Absolutely."  
  
"Oh my God, you did it," Dinah exclaimed, overcome by emotion. She strode over to Kasper and hugged him tightly. It was his turn to blush.  
  
"Uh yeah," he stammered, enjoying the physical contact but also stunned by it. He patted Dinah's back, uncertain of what else to do.  
  
"Dinah, either kiss the man or let him breathe," Tim quipped.  
  
Dinah apparently decided to do the first one.  
  
She bent upwards and planted a hard wet kiss right on the young doctor's lips. He gasped but accepted the contact, red flushing out his cheeks. Tim laughed behind him.  
  
Dinah finally broke away, looking sheepish. "Sorry," she said softly. "The moment."  
  
"R...r....right," Kasper stuttered. "Of course. I understand completely."  
  
"Good," she said. Then she cocked her head to the side. "Wait, something's wrong..."  
  
"Dinah?" Tim asked, coming to her side.  
  
"There's something else, right?" Dinah pressed Kasper.  
  
He swallowed hard, gathering himself. After a long moment he finally spoke. "Yes, that's right." He pointed to Tim. "Look, that vial...right now that's all we have. It'll take at least another forty-eight hours to create another batch."  
  
"So we get this one to Helena then," Tim said softly. "No problem."  
  
"Right but here's the other thing; that serum is extremely pro-active in it's materials."  
  
"What does that mean? Dinah asked, her brow knitting in frustration and confusion.  
  
"It means if you don't inject that into Huntress within twelve hours, the serum will be useless," Kasper informed them, his eyes still on Dinah. He could see the panic in her expression. "It will have vented all of its active components."  
  
Tim whistled. "Damn."  
  
"The I guess we'd better get going. It's a long enough drive back to New Gotham," Dinah said, her voice almost hazy and distant. Tim settled a hand on her shoulder, trying to encourage her. She smiled at his effort.  
  
"Good luck," Kasper said. "We'll start on a new batch but I fear..."  
  
"She doesn't have the time," Dinah said quickly. "We'll get this to her." She turned to grab her leather jacket off the chair. She pulled it over her shoulders and then indicated towards Tim for him to follow her. She'd clearly taken the lead position. Tim acknowledged it and slid behind her.  
  
Dinah turned back at the last moment to regard Dr. Kasper. "I won't forget this," she told him, eyes locked on his.  
  
He smiled boyishly. "God speed."  
  
She forced her hands against the sides of her head and pushed, whimpering in agony as she tried to make the pain in her head stop. The heels of her palms bit harshly into her eye sockets as she intensified the contact.  
  
"Helena," Barbara cried out as she wheeled into the lab. Reese was maybe two steps behind her, wearing an expression that looked like terror. He grabbed a cloth off the counter as he approached.  
  
"Put your head back," Reese ordered as he sat down next to her. He reached out and yanked at her hands. She slapped him away.  
  
"Helena," Barbara admonished gently. "Move your hands."  
  
The young woman shook her head. "No. Make it stop."  
  
Barbara grabbed for her hands and yanked them roughly away from Helena's face. There were small bruises forming in the spots where they'd been. Blood trickled out of Helena's nose, pooling just above her lips. It wasn't much yet but just the same, it was frightening. Minutes earlier Helena had been deep in an induced coma, resting peacefully for the first time in weeks. That little bomb hidden somewhere in her skull had changed that, ripping her awake.  
  
"I need you to listen," Barbara started. "I need you to trust me."  
  
"Not an issue," Helena replied, squeezing her eyes shut. "I don't...was dreaming..."  
  
"Helena, there's something in your head."  
  
"It's an explosive," Reese put in. He couldn't quite believe his own words. It sounded insane even to his own ears. But then again, lately, nothing was exactly normal.  
  
She turned to look at him. She laughed. "An explosive? Did you hit your head?"  
  
"He's telling the truth," Barbara said softly. She reached out to touch Helena and her fingers grazed her cheek. "There is small vibration bomb behind your left ear." She swallowed hard. "It's been set off."  
  
"Then I'd be dead," Helena said dully. "So obviously you're wrong." She grit her teeth hard against the pain, desperate not to sound like an idiot muttering half sentences. She tried to convince herself that the pain really wasn't any worse than if she were suffering from a nasty hangover.  
  
Didn't exactly fly but it would work for the time being.  
  
"It pulled you out of the coma. Your body told you something was going on and it pulled you away from the protective blanket we created for you."  
  
"Then get it out," Helena replied in a tiny voice. She looked up at her mentor, her blue eyes terrified and wide. She looked so much like a scared child. She placed her hand over Barbara's. "Please?"  
  
"We will," Barbara insisted. "But I need you to calm down and trust me. I know right now you're scared..."  
  
"I don't get scared," Helena snapped.  
  
"Okay, then I know that you're angry," Barbara said with a slight smirk. Helena apparently didn't catch the humor and instead her body grew rigid and tense. She was about ready to erupt with fury. She jumped up and away from the bed, yanking at one of the wires in her arm. She pulled it and two others loose and then paced away from Reese and Barbara.  
  
"Are you fucking kidding me? I'm angry? Oh no, this isn't anger..."  
  
"Helena," Reese warned. "You've got to stop or you'll collapse again..."  
  
Helena moved over towards the counter on the far side and bent over it. She placed her palms flat against the tiled surface and stared down at it. Her eyes locked on an unused monitor sitting on the counter. "I won't go down like this," she muttered.  
  
"Helena," Barbara begged, moving towards her. "Please, time is of the essence."  
  
Helena laughed in anger. "Time? Seems we're all out." She picked the monitor up and spinning around threw it with all her strength against the opposite wall. It exploded in a spray of plastic, glass and metal. Reese instinctively moved in front of Barbara to shield her from any debris but none came within two feet. "I'm not fucking going down like this. I'm not dying like this!"  
  
She moved to pick up another monitor but Reese was quicker. He grabbed her hands and spun her around. "Stop this now."  
  
She opened her mouth to speak but he grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and pushed her back towards the bed. He gave her one more shove and then she was lying flat on her back on the mattress.  
  
"You're not going to die," Barbara assured her. "But right now you have a few things working against you. You know I will move heaven and hell to save you but for once in your life, Helena, I need you to fight for yourself. Let go of the anger and just trust me."  
  
Helena blinked.  
  
She sagged back against the mattress, eyes on the ceiling. A stray tear escaped her left ear and drifted down her cheek. She wiped it away roughly. "I trust you," she replied quietly. "Don't let me die."  
  
Barbara nodded. She looked at Reese. "Under the counter there is a red med kit. It has some special tools in it."  
  
"You're just going to cut into her head? How do you know that Harley was telling the truth about where she put it?" Reese pushed, not at all happy about where this was headed. Helena had already been through so damn much.  
  
"I don't," Barbara replied thoughtfully. "The kit?"  
  
Reese dropped into a crouch beside one of the counters. He opened a cupboard and yanked out a long red box that had a Red Cross symbol on it. He held it up to Barbara. She took it from him and opened it. The first thing she pulled out was something that looked like a thin tube maybe four inches in length. There was a white button on the side. "What is that thing?" Reese asked.  
  
Helena glanced up to see what Barbara was holding and scowled. "It's a goddamn metal detector."  
  
Barbara chuckled. "More or less."  
  
She pushed the button on it and it began to pulse a pale blue. "That's a metal detector?" Reese asked, incredulous.  
  
"Mmm hmm," Barbara mumbled. To Helena she said, "Hold still will you please?"  
  
"I am," Helena muttered as she fidgeted anxiously on the bed. Her wounded and wrapped legs swung casually in front of her, their rhythm painful to watch.  
  
"Oh yes I forgot," Barbara commented dryly as she lifted the device towards Helena's head. "For you this is still."  
  
Helena was about to reply when a sharp pain flashed through her skull. She squeezed her eyes tightly together to stop the rush but she was unable to keep from crying out. The blood in her nose trickled down over her lips, mixing with her saliva. Reese pressed the cloth he had grabbed when he had entered the room against her mouth, washing away the crimson liquid. "Barbara," Helena moaned.  
  
"Deep breaths," the redhead ordered. "Just stay with me." She brought the strange wand over by Helena's right ear. It remained the light blue, changing colors only when it passed by the brunette's earrings. She looked at Reese and then brought the device over behind Helena's left ear.  
  
Almost immediately the color of the wand changed from blue to a shimmering red. It was almost like a red alert signal blaring to life. Barbara moved it several centimeters in each direction, gauging the size of the device. "It's here," she finally said. "Right where Harley said it would be."  
  
"I don't get," Reese said, shaking his head. "Why did she tell us?"  
  
Helena screamed in pain, her hands spasming. She jammed her fingers into the mattress, tearing the sheets.  
  
"I don't know," Barbara admitted. "Reese, hold her. That bomb is coming out right now." She bent over Helena and pushed her brown hair away from her ear. Leaning forward she inspected a small area of skin that was discolored. She wanted to ask Helena questions but the pained look on the girls face told her that right now would be a bad time for answers.  
  
Reese reached out and took Helena's hand, squeezing it tightly. She put her other hand over his and he turned it so that both of her tiny palms were encased in his much larger ones. He reached forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. The fear he could see in her wide blue eyes horrified him.  
  
"Please," she whimpered.  
  
"Hold on," Barbara muttered, green eyes locked on the stretch of skin that had obviously been disturbed in order to allow for installation of the vibration bomb. She reached over into the kit and extracted a small scalpel. "Reese, for Gods sakes, hold her tight."  
  
He slid his arms around Helena's waste and she bent forward into his chest, allowing Barbara a better view of the back of her head. "Go ahead," Reese urged the redhead.  
  
She swallowed hard and then pressed the scalpel to the rough skin. She made a small incision and then cut downwards. Helena hissed in pain but remained silent.  
  
"Shouldn't you be wearing gloves?" Reese asked idly, knowing full well that was an inane question but needing for the room not to be completely silent.  
  
Barbara had other ideas. "Yes," she admitted. "Shut up."  
  
He shook his head but did as he was told, instead folding Helena closer. He felt her slide her teeth around a piece of his tee shirt. He wondered what she was doing until another wave of pain cut through her and she bit down hard, turning her shriek of agony into a muffled grunt.  
  
Barbara continued cutting until she was satisfied with the area that she had opened up. She felt around with her thumb until she hit something that felt like a large welt. "Hold still," she said. "I need to see what this is."  
  
"Hurry," Helena exclaimed, tears sliding down her cheeks and mixing with the now steady stream of blood that was falling from her nose.  
  
Barbara narrowed her eyes and bent forward, examining the small device that she uncovered. It looked just like the one in the picture only on its underbelly was several small wires that looked like strands of hair. Really, they were that thin.  
  
"Can you get it out?" Reese asked, feeling Helena bit his shirt again. This time her teeth grazed his chest and took a healthy bite out of his flesh. If she tasted his blood in her mouth, she certainly didn't let on.  
  
"I think so," Barbara mumbled. She picked up the scalpel again and bent forward. She sliced at the wires with infinite care, horrified that she was about to kill Helena. The uncertainty of what she was doing terrified her.  
  
But there just wasn't time to make sure.  
  
"She's bleeding from her ears," Reese commented, eyes wide. He could see the thin crimson stream that was leaking down the left side of Helena's jaw. He felt her crunch into his chest again, this time holding herself there for almost twenty seconds before the spasm passed. One look down at her skin and he could see that she had gone completely clammy and cold.  
  
If Barbara heard him she didn't show any sign. She continued splicing away at the thin wires that had melded themselves to her tissue. She could feel the electricity pouring away from them but they didn't have enough voltage to electrocute her. That wasn't their purpose anyways.  
  
She finally looked up at Reese and their eyes locked. She looked down at the shaking girl who was completely buried against him. Her arms clutched at his chest and she was digging her face into his chest. "God help us," she mouthed to Reese.  
  
He nodded at her. "Do it," he whispered.  
  
She bent back over and reached placed a pair of tweezers into the incision. She dug around for a few moments, searching for a handle. She finally found one and she began to yank. The little bomb resisted, sending shockwaves up the plastic tweezers. Barbara realized that her hand was trembling but that just solidified her resolve; the damn device was trying to stay implanted. It was trying to scare her off.  
  
She yanked harder and it popped free, sliding out of the incision and shuddering violently against the tweezers. It was covered in blood and damaged tissue. The wound oozed crimson fluid down the back of Helena's neck.  
  
"It's out," she announced.  
  
"Barbara, get rid of it," Reese ordered, eyes locked on the little bomb.  
  
"What?" she said, looking up at him with confusion. Then she gasped as one of the wires tried to cut into her palm, almost as if it had its own mind. The metal tentacle dug into her flesh. She tore at it, yanking it away from her skin. Holding it away from her body with the tweezers she wheeled over to one of the counters. There was a jar sitting on the flat surface that had a bubbling liquid in it. She dropped the bomb into it.  
  
It gurgled in the water and then exploded, destroying the glass container in the process.  
  
"That's some boom," Reese noted. He glanced down at the broken glass on the counter. "Was that acid? Bubbling acid?"  
  
"Yes," Barbara replied dryly. "Experiment. Keep holding her."  
  
"She's got a hold on me," Reese chuckled. He grimaced a bit in pain when it occurred to him that she was still biting into his skin.  
  
Barbara slid back behind Helena and began to probe the wound, looking for any unwanted debris. When she was reasonably satisfied that there wasn't any, she began to clean it out. The area around the disturbed skin was already turning several shades of purple. "That bitch really did a number on her," Barbara commented as she dabbed at the incision. "Injected her with an experimental drug and put a bomb in her head. That's some hands-on therapy."  
  
"Gallows humor?" Reese asked.  
  
"Something like that," she admitted with a sigh. "Hand me that plastic container over there. I'm gonna stitch her up."  
  
"So why did Harley tell us where the bomb was?" Reese asked, handing her the plastic box.  
  
"Because she still has the ace in the hole of knowing that drug is in her," Barbara replied as she started to stitch up the wound. Several minutes passed in silence before she spoke again. "And because she's a psycho and as a general rule they all like to rant about their plans. Trust me on this, it's Villains 101."  
  
"Gotcha," he said. "Hey...oh hey, she's out."  
  
Barbara lifted an eyebrow. "The drug?"  
  
"I don't know," he admitted. "One moment she's biting me and the next she's not." He reached over and ran his fingers through her sweat-drenched hair.  
  
"We don't have a lot of time," Barbara said with a sigh. "We need that vaccine. I can't put her back under and she will continue getting emotional the closer she gets. That will speed it up."  
  
"She'll make it," Reese replied shortly.  
  
Barbara lifted an eyebrow. "Didn't take you for being much for false hopes," she commented. "Lift her head up."  
  
He did as he was told, pulling Helena free of his now torn and bloody shirt. Her blood had mixed with his on the front of the fabric. Her face was slack and pale but she was still breathing and for now that was something. "I'm not," he admitted. "But we didn't come this far to lose her now."  
  
"That I can agree to," Barbara chuckled as she finished up the stitching. She placed a gauze pad over the wound. "Alfred," she called out.  
  
The butler appeared in the doorway immediately. So quickly in fact that it was fairly obvious that he'd been right outside the entire time. "Yes?"  
  
"We need to bathe her. Will you draw the bath in my room? Make it cold, we need to cool her down."  
  
"Of course," he said. He glanced once at Helena and then strode away.  
  
Barbara reached across and pulled the unconscious girl into her lap. She wrapped her arms around and cradled her against her chest. She looked up at Reese. "We should probably clean out the bite," she mused.  
  
He snorted loudly. "Should I be worried?"  
  
"I have no comment on that," she chuckled. "Just the same, take off your shirt and I'll clean it out. You've certainly sustained more than your fair share of chest wounds over the last few days."  
  
"You're telling me," he replied with a chuckle. Then he waved her off. "Worry about her. Bring her fever down. I'll be okay."  
  
"Reese..."  
  
"I'll clean it out myself," he assured her.  
  
"You had better," she warned him. "I'm not dealing with another person with a psycho bizarre aversion to medical treatment."  
  
He held up his hands. "Hate doctors but not fond of infections either."  
  
"Good," she grunted. She looked up at the door. "Ready?"  
  
Alfred nodded. "Yes." He stepped out of the way to allow Barbara to pass. Then he looked at Reese, narrowing his eyes. "Sit on the bed."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"I saw the way you attempted to treat the last wounds you received. It was pitiful."  
  
Reese opened his mouth to protest, held it open for several moments and then snapped it shut. With a resigned sigh he slid on to the bed and yanked off his shirt. He whistled when he saw the brightly discolored bite mark on his chest. It stood out in bright contrast to the white tape around his chest. "Now that's some kind of calling card," he laughed.  
  
"Indeed," Alfred chuckled. "Miss Helena certainly knows how to leave an impression."  
  
Reese looked up at the butler and grinned widely. He snorted in amusement and then held his arms out as if to tell Alfred that he was placing himself in the older mans' hands.  
  
"Have at it," he said. "I'm all yours." 


	9. 9

"Can't you drive any faster?" Dinah snapped, frustration overtaking her delicate youthful features. She pressed her palm against the handle above the passenger door and dug her nails into the leather.  
  
"I'm going eighty," Tim reminded her. "I could go ninety and then we could get pulled over and have the vaccine taken from us because some ass monkey cop thinks it's some kind of illegal drug. Hey, your choice."  
  
She rolled her eyes. "That was dramatic."  
  
"So is annoying me every three seconds," he shot back.  
  
She sighed and then dropped back against the seat, eyes staring straight ahead at the highway. Almost five minutes passed before she spoke again. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I just...I'm just..."  
  
"Scared," Tim finished for her. "So am I. I've had Hel in my life for about as long as I can remember. She's one of my best friends. We haven't seen each other in awhile but she's still pretty much my sister."  
  
"Mine too," Dinah said softly.  
  
"Hey we're in this together," Tim assured her. "I'm sorry for snapping. I'm just...well I'm the same just that you are. We're just together."  
  
She laughed. "You're insane is what you are."  
  
"That's more or less true," he admitted. "But oh hey, it's fun. Sanity is greatly over-rated."  
  
"Helena says that."  
  
"And now you know where she got it from."  
  
"Indeed," Dinah noted. "Why am I guessing that there are a lot of stories about you and Helena that Barbara would prefer I didn't know?"  
  
"Because you're a very smart girl." Tim laughed. "And there are. Tons of them."  
  
"So," she said. "Fill some time."  
  
He shrugged. "Why not. Okay. Lemme think." He paused for a beat and then laughed. "How about my last night here before I went off to college. Yeah, yeah that's a good one. That's definitely one that Babs would prefer I didn't share." His eyes sparkled mischievously.  
  
"So tell," Dinah urged him.  
  
"Well it started at No Man's Land and it involved a lot of Vodka, two police sedans, a pizza and a local band of thieves known as the Penguin Gang."  
  
Dinah laughed. "Go on. God, go on."

* * *

The girl rolled over in the bed, moaning as she turned on her side. Her feet caught against the soft fabric of the cotton sheets, tangling with them. She could feel a hand on her forehead, brushing away her hair. She blinked and forced her eyes open, grimacing at the bright lights. After a moment she adjusted and forced them to open completely, showing blood-shot blues.  
  
"Hey you," Barbara said softly. "Reese, hand me a blanket."  
  
He did as he was told, taking a blanket from the foot of the bed and offering it to the redhead. She accepted it and draped it over Helena. He watched passively, leaning his tall frame against the door. They were in Helena's room at the Clocktower.  
  
"Barbara?" Helena muttered, glancing up at her mentor. "What the hell did you do my head?"  
  
The redhead laughed in response. "Oh I just removed a bomb."  
  
"Of course you did," Helena groaned. "Because that makes total sense." She sighed. "Okay I admit it, I have this bad habit of pissing people off but who'd I tick off so bad that they put a fucking bomb in my head?"  
  
"The Joker," Reese said from the door. "Though it was Harley who put it in."  
  
Helena winced. "Ouch." She looked at Barbara. "I am never doing counseling again. Just get that out of your head. Make it go because there's not a chance in hell that I will ever sit down with a shrink again."  
  
"Was afraid of that," Barbara muttered. "But hey, not every shrink in New Gotham is a psychopath intent on world domination."  
  
"Or maybe they are," Helena commented wryly. "I'd just assume not take my chances." She held up her hand. "And that's final."  
  
"Okay, okay," Barbara laughed. "How do you feel?"  
  
"Like I've spent the last week being tossed through the spin cycle of a dryer."  
  
"Considering all you've been through, that's about right," Reese commented, stepping away from the door. He came closer and bent down next to her. "How's your head?"  
  
Helena lifted a hand to the back of her head and grazed her fingers over the gauze strip. "Wasn't hurting before much. Had an itch there and I thought maybe it was just some weird welt."  
  
"Weird welt?" Barbara queried.  
  
Helena shrugged. "I don't always know where all of my bruises and such come from. Nature of the job."  
  
"Something like that," Barbara chuckled. "Do you feel okay now?"  
  
"Eh, not worse anyways. Considering I felt like my head was exploding, I feel pretty good right now."  
  
"Well good. I talked to Tim a few minutes ago and they're on their way back. They have a vaccine that should eradicate the drug in your system. This should all be over very soon," Barbara said softly.  
  
Helena looked down and away. Mumbling she replied, "I think it's going to be a very long while before it's completely over." She moved her toes a bit as if to point towards her wounded legs.  
  
The same legs that the Joker had smashed with a heavy steel mallet.  
  
God, weeks ago.  
  
Barbara touched her hand. "We'll get through this."  
  
Helena looked up. "We are getting through this." She shook her head. "What about Harley? I mean, no offense but I'm just not satisfied with taking her medical license." She brightened a bit. "Can I impale her with a pitchfork?"  
  
"Helena!" Barbara admonished, though truthfully not terribly shocked by the suggestion. To her side Reese chuckled. "And no, we can't. When this is all over we'll turn her over to the proper authorities."  
  
Helena yawned. "How boring." Then she frowned and the pain appeared in her eyes again. "What about him?"  
  
"We'll deal with him," Barbara assured her young protégé. "He's done hurting you."  
  
Helena nodded and fell back against the pillow. "So until Dinah and Tim get here..."  
  
"You're not leaving this room and somehow or another, you're going to stay completely calm. Even if that means I put on the Tele-Tubbies for the next few hours,"  
  
Helena made a face. "That won't make me calm. Suicidal and homicidal maybe." She looked up at Reese and brightened. "It's a hell of a training device though. Show a recruit TeleTubbies and your work is done, they're a baddie."  
  
"Lion King it is," Barbara said with a snort as Reese started laughing, nearly falling over in his mirth.  
  
"Eh, works for me," the brunette replied.  
  
Reese glanced up at the clock as Barbara wheeled herself over to the VCR. Tim had called about twenty minutes earlier to say that he and Dinah were on their way back from Metropolis, vaccine in tow.  
  
They were about seven hours away.  
  
Seven hours.  
  
Just seven hours.  
  
"Reese?" Helena called out. "Hello? Reese?"  
  
He blinked and then turned towards her. "I'm here."  
  
She patted the bed beside her. "Unless of course you're too manly for the Lion King."  
  
He grinned at her. "I thought you were."  
  
She winked at him. "Many things you don't know Detective."  
  
He laughed. "Many things I'm figuring out Huntress."  
  
Barbara snorted. "If you two are done with the blatant flirting, can I join you?"  
  
Helena smacked her hand against the opposite side of her king sized bed. "Plenty of room for one and all."  
  
Reese shook his head. "That sounds bad."  
  
Helena cocked her head to the side. "Yeah," she finally admitted. "But it's fun."  
  
Reese just laughed.

* * *

He gazed down at the little metal box in his hand and sighed. His ruby red smile became an unhappy frown and he began to pout. Everything was going to hell now. The lights on the device indicated whether or not the bomb was armed and it was now saying that it had been disconnected.  
  
Add that to the fact that Harley had gone missing and he could no longer get into Helena's mind and it was turning out to a rather shitty day.  
  
Well then perhaps it was just about time to abandon ship. There would always be another day for revenge. If that need be. There was still the drug and unless a vaccine had been created, Helena Kyle could still die.  
  
But really that was more upsetting than anything else. He didn't want her to die from a deadly vaccine. He had dreamed and imagined it to be by his hands and with her whimpering in front of him.  
  
That would have to wait for another day.  
  
The plan was pretty much up and his wildcards were gone. His deck was showing signs of wear and tear and needed to be swapped out. That would take time and patience, so-called virtues that had never come easily to him.  
  
Still, perhaps it was the best way to go about things.  
  
Even if she survived the drug, the scars would be with her for a very long time.  
  
And for now, perhaps that would do.  
  
A smile suddenly appeared on his lips. If she lived, he rather imagined that her mentor Barbara Gordon would come to see him again. She'd want to threaten him and warn him to stay away from Helena. Otherwise, oh gasp, she'd kill him.  
  
She never would. Barbara was one of the stupid Bat's lame protégé's. She believed in all that nonsense about good and evil and she'd never cross that line.  
  
Which was good for him of course but he rather imagined that down the line, it would end up very bad for them.  
  
But that was for later.  
  
He settled back in his chair, smiling widely.  
  
And counting the minutes until the former Batgirl would arrive.  
  
Now that would be fun.  
  
END CHAPTER 8 


	10. 10

"I didn't think she'd fade so quietly," Reese murmured as he ran his fingers through Helena's short dark hair. It was damp with perspiration. They were still lying on her bed but she was almost completely wrapped in his arms, the sheets clinging to her tape-wrapped legs.  
  
Barbara shuddered at his words. When she had first turned the movie on Helena had been alert and awake, even making crude jokes. As time had passed, she had suddenly become quieter. At first Barbara had assumed that she'd just fallen asleep but her vital signs were weak.  
  
And getting worse by the minute.  
  
She was running out of time.  
  
"Neither did I," Barbara admitted. She reached down to the foot of the bed and picked up a blanket. "Do you mind?" she asked hesitantly.  
  
He nodded slowly and slid Helena off of him. He pressed her into Barbara's waiting arms and moved to his feet. "I uh, I'm gonna get some coffee or something, okay?"  
  
"Reese, it's all right," she assured him. "Get some air."  
  
He frowned. He hadn't wanted to be so transparent. It was all so damn hard. He wanted to rage and breaks thing but he couldn't find the energy. The fear in his body was almost suffocating as he realized just how close to the end they really were.  
  
Either Tim and Dinah got to Helena in time or by the end of the night she'd be dead.  
  
It was that simple.  
  
It was that cold.  
  
"Right," he murmured, quickly slipping out of the room. He descended the stairs rapidly and moved towards the balcony. When he stepped out into the icy wet night he blinked in amazement as he saw Alfred standing outside, eyes looking straight ahead. "Alfred? Are you okay?"  
  
"No," the butler admitted. "I've been watching that girl for many years now. I've been watching them all grow."  
  
"You were her fathers' butler, right?"  
  
"My father before me served the Wayne's and I followed in his footsteps but yes, I pretty much raised Master Bruce," Alfred confirmed. He wrung his hands and then held them up. "Arthritis. It gets so much worse in the winter. During the summere I can tolerate it but it becomes near to unbearable in the cold months."  
  
"You should see a doctor," Reese suggested.  
  
Alfred chuckled. "I'm an old man, Detective, I'm supposed to have arthritis."  
  
Reese cocked his head to the side. "Have you ever thought about retiring?"  
  
"Heavens no," Alfred said quickly. "What would these women do without me?" He paused. "What would I do without them? Enjoy a nice day on the beach?" He shook his head. "Sounds nice. It's hardly my style. No, Detective. I belong right here. For better or for worse."  
  
"Can't say as I like that statement," Reese muttered, watching the snow fall in wet clumps on the ground.  
  
Alfred chuckled lightly. "I have faith that Miss Dinah and Master Tim will make it back on time. Further, I have faith in Miss Helena. As long as you know her, you'll never completely understand her but you will always be able to count on one thing."  
  
"Oh?" Reese queried, eyebrow quirked in curiosity.  
  
"She will always defy expectations. She will always surprise you."  
  
"Yeah," Reese smiled. "I'm getting that." He glanced at Alfred. "But really, what about you? What draws you to this whole thing? I mean, doesn't it all seem kind of insane?"  
  
Alfred laughed. "Kind of? Oh no, it is quite insane." He smiled warmly. "And in that insanity is home."  
  
"That's kind of a non-answer," Reese noted.  
  
"Perhaps," Alfred agreed. "I stay here because it is my duty. I stay here because it is my home and these women are my family. I have known Miss Barbara since she was very young and perhaps in all my time I have never met a more remarkable woman. As for Miss Helena, I came late to that party so to speak but as she was and is a daughter to Master Bruce, she is like a grand-daughter to me." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Only she teases me more than most grandchildren do I imagine."  
  
"That's probably true," Reese laughed.  
  
"Miss Dinah is the newest but she's the final piece of their puzzle. She completes them." He paused again and then repeated. "They are my family and that is why I stay."  
  
"Good enough," Reese said. Then he sighed. "Is it bad that I needed to step outside and get away for a few moments?"  
  
"Do you think it makes you weak?"  
  
Reese considered that for a few moments and then finally nodded. "Yes. I should be by her side."  
  
"You love her," Alfred put in, his voice mild.  
  
"I didn't say that."  
  
"You didn't have to," the old butler chuckled. "And no, Detective, it doesn't make you less. There's a reason that I'm not in there right now. Besides, this is Miss Barbara's place. Whatever else you will ever be to Miss Helena..."  
  
"I know," Reese chuckled. "Sharing her with the redhead am I."  
  
"Indeed," Alfred said wryly.  
  
"Indeed," Reese repeated. He turned back to stare out at the night.  
  
"Do you smoke Detective?"  
  
Reese blinked and turned towards Alfred. "Not really. A cigar from time to time. Do you?"  
  
"Not really," Alfred responded. He reached into his jacket and pulled out two cigars. "Only when I'm stressed." He offered one to Reese. The young cop took it and nodded at Alfred, incredibly touched by the gesture and the admission of emotion.  
  
"Yeah me too," Reese said. "Me too."  
  
Alfred just smiled kindly at him and leaned over to light the cigar. Reese put a hand over his and took the lighter. The two men locked eyes and the older one finally relented, his hands trembling with pain.  
  
"Thank you," Alfred said softly.  
  
"Sure," Reese responded, just before he turned to watch the snowfall.  
  
Snow was a good thing.  
  
Snow was hope.  
  
And hope was always a plus.  
  
Always.

* * *

Barbara clutched the slumbering girl tightly against her check. A frantic check of her pulse showed that Helena was still drawing air and her heart was still beating, albeit a bit slower now.  
  
She was definitely fading. Barbara wondered if Tim and Dinah even had a chance.  
  
No, that was too horrible to consider.  
  
Helena had to survive. Had to.  
  
"I don't know what I'd do without you," Barbara whispered, touching Helena's forehead. "You know, I'd likely be less stressed." She chucked. "I wouldn't spend the majority of my evenings wondering about your whereabouts and hoping that you're okay. I think I'd be more sane."  
  
Tears scrambled down her cheeks and she tasted salt against her lips. She considered brushing them away but then realized that she didn't actually care that she was crying.  
  
"You can't leave me. We're in this together," Barbara insisted. She shook her head. "God, what was I thinking? I never should have brought you into this..."  
  
"Who the fuck knows what you were thinking," Helena muttered. "What I want to know right now is why you're babbling in my ear and crying all over my cool sleep time rags."  
  
Barbara blinked. She pushed the tears away and then sheepishly replied, "Sorry. Thought you were sleeping. Mentor's prerogative to get weepy when protégé is in pain."  
  
"I'm not in pain," Helena informed her. "I mean right now nothing really hurts which is kinda odd." She moved her wounded left leg. "It all just kind of numb."  
  
"Helena..."  
  
"Oh relax, I'm not going anywhere," the brunette yawned. "I'm not done fighting yet."  
  
"I'm holding you to that," Barbara informed her. "You die on me and I will never forgive you."  
  
"Yeah, nice inspirational speech there Gordon," Helena quipped. "I mean come on now, whoo hoo and rally up the troops."  
  
"I'm serious," Barbara informed her.  
  
Helena looked up at her old friend and smiled. "I know you are. And so am I, I'm not going anywhere. No need for great big dramatic deathbed scenes, I'll be here in the morning. Hell I'll be here all week with my comedy routine."  
  
"Comedy routine?"  
  
"Yeah," Helena smiled, her eyes drooping a bit. "Did I ever tell you the one about the five nuns in Tijuana?"  
  
Barbara slapped her arm lightly and laughed. "Yes you did and it was disturbed then as well."  
  
"Yeah well, it's gotten better," Helena promised.  
  
Barbara nodded her head forward. "Well then, by all means, tell me."  
  
"Sure," Helena slurred, the exhaustion overcoming her. She fought through it and continued to speak. "So these five nuns take a trip to Tijuana..."

* * *

"What happened?" Reese demanded as he entered the bedroom. Alfred trailed a few feet behind him, face drawn tight with worry. They both approached Barbara who was leaning over Helena's unconscious form. Blankets were strewn all over the bed, like they had been hastily ripped away.  
  
"She's not breathing," Barbara replied tersely as she bent back over her former charge. She pressed her mouth to Helena's, pinched her nose and then forced air into her lungs. Reese watched as the brunette's chest rose and the fell. "Oh God..."  
  
"Can I help?" he asked, frustration in his tone. This wasn't right. This wasn't fair. They'd come too damn far and almost pulled her through it all; they couldn't actually be losing her now.  
  
"Chest compressions," Barbara snapped back. "Basic first aide."  
  
"Right," he mumbled. He slipped around to the side and nodded at Barbara. Putting the heel of his palms against the bottom of her ribcage, his gave a hard push inwards. He did fifteen quick compressions and then waited for Barbara to do her part. After she had given two quick breaths he returned to his part of the job, fear racing through his blood. He gave three hard pushes and was about to do another when he heard a pained cough. He looked up sharply and met Barbara's eyes. She broke the contact and looked down at Helena. The girls' slate blue eyes were open, albeit hazily so. She looked confused and disorientated, like she'd just woken up from a nap.  
  
"Hey, welcome back." Barbara said softly, gently touching the side of Helena's face. She cradled her cheek gently, rubbing the skin with her thumb. She moved her other hand to Helena's wrist and took her pulse, smiling slightly when she actually felt it blipping.  
  
"Ow," Helena muttered, glancing at Reese. "You're still poking me." He quickly broke away from her, looking apologetic. She offered him a smile to calm his nerves. Then she looked at Barbara. "Did I just die?"  
  
"No," Barbara said quickly. "You just stopped breathing on your own for a few moments there. How do you feel?"  
  
"In other words do you know who we are?" Reese asked lightly.  
  
Helena snorted loudly and shook her head. "Yeah, the guy in the back is the only one in this room who's sane."  
  
Alfred chuckled. "It's good to see you as well Miss Helena."  
  
She winked at him and then looked at Barbara and smiled. "I'm okay."  
  
"Sure," Barbara said. "Look I want to get you an oxygen mask..."  
  
"Barbara..."  
  
"We're not arguing about this so let's not, okay?" the redhead said, clearly exasperated. She could only imagine what Helena was going through staring down death but she kind of figured that it at least slightly resembled her own hell. She felt tired and worn down. She wondered when she had slept last or eaten for that matter.  
  
She wondered if they were just delaying the inevitable.  
  
She gazed at her protégé for a long moment, her heart swelling with a thousand emotions all at once. She spun her chair and moved out of the room, leaving Alfred and Reese with Helena.  
  
"Okay," Helena replied, dropping her head back against the pillows. She looked up at Reese and grinned impishly. "Were you about to do mouth to mouth on me?"  
  
"Only you could be cracking jokes right now," he laughed. He shook his head, not willing to give her an answer. He glanced up at the clock on the wall and narrowed his eyes.  
  
The seven hours was almost up.  
  
It was high time for the cavalry to show up and save the day.  
  
"They'll make it," Helena assured him. "This isn't how I'm supposed to go out."  
  
"You're not supposed to go out at all," Reese stammered, locking eyes with her. He searched her for some understanding but all he got was calm. "Are you actually prepared to die?"  
  
She laughed loudly. "You haven't been listening have you? I'm not dying tonight. I'm not dying in a bed. If I do one day, I mean eventually, it'll be on my feet, fighting. Not like this. So no, I'm not prepared to die. I'm not worried."  
  
"You almost just did die," he reminded her.  
  
"No I didn't," she replied. "Barbara saved me."  
  
He turned to look at Alfred for help but the old man just shrugged, a slight smile tugging at his lips. "Okay then," Reese finally said. He dropped down next to her and reached out for her hand. She gladly offered hers and he squeezed it, delighting in the contact. Her skin was feverish but still soft.  
  
"So about that coffee date," she drawled. "How about you take me to a Knicks game instead."  
  
"You like basketball?" he said incredulously.  
  
"That's an understatement, Detective," Barbara said as she re-entered, holding a strange metal tank in her lap. He could see an oxygen mask lying on her knee. She wheeled over to Helena, dropped the tank to the ground and then snapped the mask over Helena's mouth before the brunette could even begin to protest. Steam rose up and away from her and the device made a strange whooshing noise.  
  
"What do you mean by that?" Reese asked with curiosity. He grinned at the frustration he could see in Helena's eyes. That much emotion meant that she was awake and alert and that we certainly a good thing.  
  
"Helena's not just a Knicks fan, she's a fanatic. Trust me, Reese, the girl knows her basketball."  
  
"You're kidding me," he said, glancing down at Helena. She opened her mouth to speak but then settled for shrugging instead.  
  
"She has a wicked perimeter shot," Alfred informed him, seemingly with pride.  
  
"Learn something new every day," Reese commented, eyes still deep within hers. "I'll have to bring you out to play with the boys, see how well that three shot holds up."  
  
Helena reached down and lifted off the mask. "Twenty bucks say they want me on the team and not you by the time we're done."  
  
"Helena, put the mask back on," Barbara sighed, smacking her arm lightly. "Reese, don't encourage her to be bad."  
  
"Sorry," they both said at the same time. They laughed together and then she pulled the mask back over her mouth, but not before first sticking out her tongue at her mentor.  
  
"Barbara!"  
  
She turned quickly, her chair nearly toppling because of the urgent motion.  
  
Reese looked over at Alfred. "Who is that?"  
  
"Tim," Barbara said breathlessly. "They made it."  
  
At that exact moment Helena began to cough violently, doubling over in obvious anguish. Reese moved quickly to her side and slid a hand around her shuddering frame. "Barbara, she's coughing up blood..."  
  
The redhead snapped around, fear widening her green eyes. "Get the mask off her," she snapped. Reese did as he was told, quickly shedding the oxygen mask.  
  
"Barbara," Tim Drake said as he and Dinah swept into the room. Dinah was holding a black and red bag around her shoulder. He dropped down to the bed next to Helena and picked up one of her hands. "Hey baby girl, backup is here." Their eyes connected and Helena offered him a pained half smile.  
  
Dinah yanked the bag off her shoulder and tore it open, pulling out a small black case. In side the case was the vial that Dr. Kasper had given them as well as a small syringe. She filled the needle with liquid and then offered it to Barbara who quickly took it and turned it over in her palm.  
  
Her hands were trembling to such a frantic degree that eventually she had to beg off and allow Tim to inject the needle into Helena's left forearm. The girl hissed the moment the metal point went into her flesh. A few seconds passed and then her eyes rolled backwards and she collapsed into a dead faint.  
  
"Barbara?" Dinah asked, moving around to Helena's side. She bent down to inspect the needle mark, almost like she expected to see something unusual. The redhead slid her hand into Dinah's and gently pulled her away.  
  
"Wait," she said softly. "It could be a natural reaction to the drug. Wait." She took her glasses off and peered down at a monitor that was attached to Helena. The readout on it was rather wild, showing rapidly altering life-signs. After almost five minutes of tense silence, while they all watched the display, the line in the middle began to bleep away calmly. All steady-like.  
  
"Barbara?" Dinah asked, worry in her tone.  
  
"She's okay," Barbara breathed. She moved her chair towards Helena and brushed a shaky hand over her feverish forehead. She dropped down and checked for a pulse. She let out a caught breath when she was rewarded with a study thumping against her fingers. She turned to regard Tim and Dinah. "Well done you two."  
  
Dinah beamed and glanced at her partner in crime who was now wearing a small confident smirk. "In the bag," he insisted. "Never a worry."  
  
Dinah couldn't stop herself from snorting but when Barbara looked up sharply at her she waved her off. "Nothing," she said. "It's nothing."  
  
"You look exhausted Miss Dinah," Alfred noted as he approached her. He slung a blanket over her shoulder. "And wet," he concluded.  
  
She blinked and glanced down at herself. That was when she noticed that she was covered in melted snow and her clothes were now drenched all the way through. Tim was wearing a leather overcoat so his jeans had been mostly protected from the pelting they had gotten on their way from the car to the elevator.  
  
Of course that hadn't stopped Tim from bitching about there being no parking in the garage thanks to Barbara and her big damn Hummer. Or so he'd said.  
  
"I am," she admitted. She cocked her head and looked at Barbara who was now seated next to Reese. Both of them were leaning over Helena. He was gently cleaning blood away from her mouth. "So that's it? It's over?" Dinah asked.  
  
Reese laughed. "Are you kidding me? That's it? Don't know about you but this has been a hell of an ordeal."  
  
"No, no," Dinah said quickly. "That's not what I meant. I'm sorry, I really am tired." She closed her eyes for a beat and then said softly. "Is Helena okay? Is she gonna make it? Can she finally heal in peace now?"  
  
"Yes," Barbara said firmly. "I still want to run a few tests and I want to track the path of the antidote but if it works like it should, Helena will make a full recovery." She laughed. "We can actually start working on her physical therapy."  
  
"Oh that ought to be fun," Tim cracked, dropping down into a chair opposite Helena's bed. He glanced around at the bare walls. "She finally took everything down, huh?"  
  
"I'd like to say she grew out of that phase," Barbara said dryly. "But no I think she just moved her posters to her apartment." Then she laughed. "However come to think of it, I don't think she's put them up just yet."  
  
"That's some quality procrastination," Reese commented. He stood up straight and cracked his back, groaning as his spine realigned itself. "Now what?"  
  
There was a moment of silence and then from different corners of the room they all started to laugh. It started out nervous and uncertain and then became a full-fledged emotional release. No tears of course but the near hysterical peals of laughter said plenty.  
  
Alfred slipped to the outside of the room and closed the door behind him, smiling a bit to himself.  
  
Some rays of light were finally starting to crack through the black clouds.  
  
END CHAPTER 10 


	11. 11

The storm lasted almost six more days before it finally swept out of New Gotham. Once the skies returned to an almost hazy shade of blue the children returned to the streets and school resumed.  
  
It was just about five at night before Barbara Gordon returned to the Clocktower. She slid out of the elevator and moved up the ramp to the where her bank of computers were bleeping in perfect rhythm with each other. A quick cursory inspection confirmed that everything around the city was quiet. At least relatively speaking.  
  
"Helena?" she called out, moving down the ramp and heading towards the kitchen. She smiled when she saw her former charge sitting at the table chewing on the end of a red vine. She was flipping through the brightly colored pages of a comic book. "Hey, how was your day?"  
  
"Dull." Helena replied with a yawn. "Springer was a rerun."  
  
"Damn shame," Barbara quipped. "And the rehab?"  
  
"I overslept it," Helena replied dryly. She pulled out the red vine she had been gnawing on and glared at it. "How long have these things been in the cupboard?"  
  
Barbara frowned. "I don't recall buying them so I don't know and what do you mean you overslept your rehab?"  
  
"The alarm clock didn't go off?" Helena offered up with a slight smile. She moved to her side, flinching a bit in pain.  
  
"Yeah, that doesn't really fly," Barbara replied with a shake of her head. "You're finally healing but if you don't actually do the physical therapy, you'll never get your full range of motion back."  
  
"What are you saying?"  
  
"Nothing really," Barbara said with a shrug. "Just that the best crime fighters in the world don't tend to have a terrible limp."  
  
"I don't have a limp," Helena protested, jamming the red vine back into her mouth.  
  
"No, you have a gimp," Barbara snorted loudly. "And it won't get better until you actually do some work. Helena, your legs were shattered..."  
  
"Broken," the brunette corrected. "My legs were broken. They're better now. I can walk for almost ten minutes now without having to sit down. That's healing."  
  
"But it's not therapy," Jesse Reese said from the doorway of the kitchen. He smiled at the two women seated around the table.  
  
"Reese," Helena called out affectionately. Then she frowned. "That's a terrible shirt."  
  
He glanced down at the off-green dress shirt that he was wearing. "My mom bought it for me." Then he laughed. "It's terrible but I'm having dinner with her tonight."  
  
"Likely excuse," she grinned.  
  
"Reese, help me out here," Barbara said lightly. "I'm trying to convince Helena to actually do the physical therapy regimen that Dr. Horton set up for her."  
  
"Dr. Horton is a quack," Helena said quickly, eyes twinkling. She looked a bit too mischievous for her own good. She was spoiling for something.  
  
"Dr. Horton was one of your father's most trusted physicians," Barbara reminded her young protégé. She started to rummage through her shoulder bag; finally removing a stack of rubber band bound papers.  
  
"See, quack," Helena grinned. Then she sighed. "Seriously, I think I know better than anyone how to heal myself...at least physically."  
  
"Yeah, no," Barbara laughed. "Of all the people to know anything about their own limits, you're the worst. "She moved herself into one of the chairs opposite Helena and pulled the stack of papers in front of her. Obviously she meant to grade them. "Therefore, you have a couple of options."  
  
"I don't like how that sounds," Helena drawled. "And by the way, the word 'therefore'? Who actually used that word outside a classroom?"  
  
"God forbid we be grammatically correct," Barbara replied with a smirk.  
  
Helena rolled her eyes dramatically. Looking up at the handsome detective who was leaning casually against the wall, she patted the chair next to her and indicated for Reese to sit.  
  
He shook his head. "Been sitting all day," he explained. "Spent most of the afternoon trying to get cleared back to active duty."  
  
"And?" Helena asked, thankful for the momentary respite from hearing Barbara's ultimatum.  
  
"We'll see," Reese laughed. Then he looked at Barbara who was watching their conversation with a sort of detached amusement. She knew exactly what Helena was up to and was going to bide her time. "You were saying?"  
  
"Right, I was saying," Barbara chuckled. "Here's how it works, Helena."  
  
"Uh oh," the brunette groaned.  
  
Barbara chose to ignore her and pushed on. "Either I hire you a physical therapist or I take the next six weeks off of work and I stay home with you and I become your therapist. I'm not sure you'll like that."  
  
"My home is my apartment," Helena commented.  
  
"Only if you choose option one. If you choose that one, I'll let you move back to your place and the therapist can come over..."  
  
"Can we stop using that word?"  
  
"Therapist?" Barbara asked.  
  
"Yeah, that one. And speaking of which, what are we going to do with Dr. Quinzell. I mean, I assume she's still alive down in that little cage of yours."  
  
"I would assume," Barbara said dryly. "We're going to turn her over to the police shortly."  
  
"And they're going to do what? Put her in Arkham where she can be next to her sweetie?" Helena asked, a little bit of anger flushing her cheeks. "Because that sounds fair. Or hey, even smart."  
  
"Helena..."  
  
"No I'm serious, that psycho and his evil whore pretty much single-handedly mindfucked me and the best we can do it put them in a nice little cell surrounded by other loonies?"  
  
"Yes," Reese said simply. "That's all we can do."  
  
"Bullshit," Helena snapped. She opened her mouth to say more but managed to catch herself. Her sails visibly deflated and she sagged against her chair. She wasn't about to hurt Reese and Barbara by reminding them of how they had killed Jared Kelly in order to save her life.  
  
"Helena, I won't let Harley hurt you again," Barbara promised her. She reached out and squeezed the brunette's hand. "I promise."  
  
"I know," Helena said softly, gazing down at her fingers. "Then I guess I'll let Dr. Quack bend me." She shook her head, momentarily amused by her own choice of words. "You know what I mean."  
  
"Uh huh," Reese replied with a chuckle.  
  
"Oh shush," she answered. She glanced down at her hands, a small frown playing over her lips.  
  
"Helena?" Barbara asked, sensing that there was more going on.  
  
"It's dumb," Helena murmured. "I just...I know I'm being selfish and childish but..."  
  
"I'll take the time off," Barbara said with a smile. "It's not a big deal."  
  
"Good," Helena said, relief washing over her. The truth was, there was simply no one she trusted more than her mentor and there was no one whom she felt safer with. Barbara would never hurt her and she would damn well make sure that her young charge could walk again.  
  
"Look, how do you feel today?"  
  
"Okay," Helena grumbled. "Can't we start the ther...stuff tomorrow?"  
  
"Yes," Barbara laughed. "Tim called about fifteen minutes ago and wanted to know if you wanted to catch a movie with him."  
  
"In a theatre or illegally downloaded?" Helena asked with a large grin.  
  
Barbara narrowed her eyes. "I do not pirate. On occasion I download to make sure the film is suitable for Dinah to see."  
  
"I assure you that the French thing with all the orgies was not suitable," Helena quipped. Barbara lightly slapped her arm and then glared over at Reese who was trying to pretend like he wasn't laughing.  
  
"Helena..."  
  
"Nevermind," Helena laughed. "Yeah, that sounds like a plan. He's heading off to his dorm soon."  
  
"School?"  
  
"Dorm. I can't handle Tim in college."  
  
"Right," Barbara grinned.  
  
"And you? What are you going to do tonight Barbara?"  
  
"Um, well I...uh...I have...I'm gonna..."  
  
Reese lifted an eyebrow and shifted from his back foot. He could tell that Helena was equally amused by the usually unflappable Oracle's sudden nervousness.  
  
"Oh I know," Helena laughed. "You're gonna check up on Dick tonight aren't ya?" Then she winked, "Booty call?"  
  
"Helena!"  
  
She held up her hands defensively. "Sorry, sorry... I just had to see your reaction. Say hi to him for me."  
  
She nodded slowly. "Will do."  
  
"Oh and Barbara?"  
  
"Hm?" the redhead asked, glancing up from a paper she was grading. Helena could see the streaks of corrective ink smeared all over it.  
  
"You have to admit, that French movie was awesome."  
  
Barbara shook her head, looked up at Reese in exasperation and then said with a slight chuckle, "You're bad, you're just bad."

* * *

He stared down at his hand for a long moment, his eyes tracing the metal lines of the unregistered gun he hand in his sweating palm. He shifted his body awkwardly. She smiled. "Go ahead Detective. You bought that gun just for me. I'm assuming the serial number's been shaved away and it's untraceable, right?"  
  
He pressed the barrel of the pistol against her forehead, hard enough to leave an indent. He swallowed, feeling his mouth go dry. He had already helped to murder one man, clinically dead or otherwise. This was different.  
  
This was the line.  
  
This was the point where he had to straddle the line. Was it the greater good that would be served? Was it his decision to make?  
  
"You're not going to kill me," she smirked.  
  
He nodded and dropped the gun. "No, I'm not."  
  
"That's too bad," she laughed. She moved a bit, shifting in her binds. They were standing on the roof of the Red Mill in Old Gotham. If he had killed her there it would have likely been weeks before her corpse would have been discovered. She glanced down over the side of the building, examining the five-story drop. In its heyday the Red Mill had been the major agricultural center of Gotham. That was long past though and now it was little more than a decayed broken old barn. "So take me to see Mr. J huh?"  
  
"I don't think so," Reese said with a shake of his head. He unloaded the gun and wiped it clean with a white cloth. He gave it one last look and then dropped it over the side of the barn. He put the clip in his pocket and then pulled out his service pistol. "You're not going to Arkham. You're going to a mental hospital in New Jersey."  
  
She blinked, not even vaguely amused.  
  
"From what I understand, they're not terribly interested in treating the offender, they'll just drug you out and lock you in a little room."  
  
She glared at him, unable to respond with any degree of mirth, insane or otherwise. She was pissed. "You will pay for this," she promised.  
  
He nodded slowly. "I guess we'll see but if I were you, I wouldn't count on it. I hear electrotherapy is in these days."  
  
She stared back at him, looking for a sign that he was putting her on, trying to play tough when he very clearly a Boy Scout. When after all a few moments all she saw was a hard look of defiant resolve, she visibly deflated.  
  
Mr. J would have to wait.

* * *

"I knew you'd come," the Joker said with a smile. "You couldn't resist."  
  
Barbara smiled. She bent forward. "You're right. I needed to see you."  
  
"Need closure little bat?"  
  
"Something like that. I don't imagine if I asked you why you did what you did that you'd give me an answer that would help, right?"  
  
He laughed. "You know why I did it. All of it."  
  
"And Helena?"  
  
"Weren't we just talking about little Helena Kyle?" he asked with a devious grin, knowing full well that they hadn't been. He tapped the table with his chained hands, enjoying the slight musical noise the restrains made as he moved them. He hated being bound but he'd learned to deal. Learned to work within the system. It had allowed him to escape once before and he figured eventually it would again. Patience and all that.  
  
"No," Barbara said quietly. "We weren't."  
  
"I know. Blame him," he told her. "Not me. He brought you both into this. He made you into him."  
  
"We're not him," Barbara replied. "We're still here. It's over."  
  
"It's never over," he chucked, eyes growing wild with unbridled insanity. "She's the Bat's daughter and you're his bitch. Wait, no you're not, his bitch is dead, you're just the family cripple."  
  
"It's over," she reiterated, attempting to ignore his words despite the icy cold chill they sent through her body. She reached into her pocket and pulled something out. It was wrapped in a light blue cloth. She unfolded it and set it down on the metal table. "They took this out of my back. Two of them actually."  
  
She placed the bent metal slug down on the table and pushed it towards him. "I kept one for me, to remind myself that you didn't take anything away from me and that I'm stronger now. This one I'm giving back to you. I'm done being your victim. I'm done living in the shadow of what you did to me."  
  
He opened his mouth and then shook his head. "You can't escape what you are now. What you were."  
  
Barbara smiled, her lips turning into a thin mask of determination. She turned and faced the gate where the guards were standing. "I'm ready," she called out.  
  
"And what am I to do with this?" he asked, voice oddly small. He touched the tip of the bullet on the table with his finger and then shrunk away from it, as if disturbed by its power.  
  
She laughed dryly. "If I was Helena I'd tell you just what to do with that bullet and where you could put it. I'm not though and the only advice I can give you is to put it around your neck. Remember it. Don't forget. Don't ever forget." She bent closer to him. "My promise to you? If you ever get out of here, I will always bring you down. I will always stop you."  
  
She turned her chair and moved towards the gate, which was now open. She turned slightly, just enough so he could see her side profile. "Joker?"  
  
"Mm?"  
  
"She's free. You don't own her anymore."  
  
She took a breath and then slipped through the gate. The guard closed it soundly behind her. The green-haired maniac watched her go.  
  
He smiled, a thin grotesque thing devoid of humor.  
  
Then he sagged, shoulders dropping in a sign of defeat  
  
The bat and the cat had spoiled the deck.

* * *

END CHAPTER 11 


	12. 12 FINAL

Notes: This is the final chapter of the Survivor series. I have another idea lurking in my skull but who knows if that will ever come to pass. This has been a year and a half long process for me and it's been very rewarding. Thanks to everyone for the kind feedback and support.

* * *

He moved around behind her and touched her shoulder gently. "Miss Dinah?"  
  
"I'm okay," she admitted. "Just taking a breath. Haven't really had time to do that a lot lately."  
  
"I know what you mean," he replied, leading her towards the couch. She sat on it and pulled a blanket up over her knees. "You have been amazing."  
  
"I've been shaking," she said slowly. "All of this feels so surreal."  
  
"It almost is."  
  
She laughed. "Alfred, what if we had failed? What if she had died?"  
  
"She didn't," he reassured her. "And before long you'll be back on the street patrolling with her again."  
  
"I know. I just..."  
  
He squeezed her shoulder. "Of course you do. We won."  
  
"Did we? I mean did we? It never ends. Tomorrow we'll fight another battle where we might die. And the war..."  
  
He smiled at her warmly. "Never underestimate the battles Miss Dinah."  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"I'm not sure we're meant to but what I do know is that in the end, all that matters is where we've been. It's hard to understand that now but eventually these last several weeks will make Helena stronger than she has ever been." He paused for effect. "And you as well."  
  
She dropped her head. "Is it wrong of me to say that right now all I want to do is curl up on my bed and have myself a good cry?"  
  
"Are you sad?"  
  
"No. Just spent."  
  
"It's never wrong," he told her softly. "Do what you must. Believe it or not, even Helena has shed tears at times."  
  
"I don't believe it."  
  
Alfred laughed. "You're not meant to."  
  
She grinned. "You know Alfred, you rock."  
  
He cocked his head. "So I've been told. I presume it to be a good thing."  
  
"Yeah. You rock."  
  
He patted her shoulder. "Very well. Would you like some lunch?"  
  
"Does saying you rock get me a BLT?"  
  
"It might get you two."  
  
"You rock."

* * *

"What are you thinking about?" the redhead asked as she locked eyes with her young charge. She was dressed in simple gray sweats and a wifebeater, her hair pulled back behind her ears.  
  
"Hm?" Helena asked as she looked up. She was lying flat on her back, hands under her head and feet locked under Barbara's butt. She moved forward, her right elbow jutting to the left as she performed a picture perfect sit-up, her body trembling slightly under the stress of the action.  
  
"You haven't said anything for almost ten minutes," Barbara observed.  
  
"Been doing your stupid exercises. I hate sit-ups."  
  
"We can move to the stationary bike as soon as you're ready."  
  
Helena snorted. "Unless it's humming under me, can go one hundred miles an hour and looks good between my legs, I'm not interested."  
  
Barbara wrinkled her nose. "I'm not sure but I think that was more information than I wanted to know."  
  
"Probably," Helena admitted slyly. She pushed herself into the sitting position and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She could feel all the muscles in her stomach screaming out at her. Despite the fact that it was her legs that needed the therapy, Barbara had decided to give her a full work out and she was exhausted. This certainly wasn't her training regime. She much preferred getting her exercise from beating up on Dinah or a bag and then jumping rooftops.  
  
"You didn't answer my question," Barbara reminded her. "What have you been thinking about?"  
  
"How close we came," Helena replied, not meeting her mentor's eyes. "How close I came. I keep wondering if I'll ever forget that warehouse."  
  
Barbara shook her head, "You won't."  
  
"I was afraid you'd say that," Helena answered dully.  
  
"I wish I had a better answer for you but that's not how it works. The key I guess is then not to let that memory define you."  
  
"You do," Helena said quietly, looking up at her.  
  
Barbara eased a bit, lifting her butt off of Helena's feet. Her eyes swept across the bandages, inspecting them for any sign that they needed to be replaced. The action took less than three seconds and yet it was very thorough. "I don't follow," Barbara answered.  
  
"Yes you do," Helena replied. "You do. When he took your legs, you became this. You became Oracle. You let it..."  
  
"Define me," Barbara finished for her.  
  
"Yeah," Helena said with a nod.  
  
"You know Hel, in the beginning I became Oracle because I had to do something. I was losing my mind and you were being a pain in the ass."  
  
Helena smiled, "So I'm not now?"  
  
Barbara laughed, "Oh you still are. What I mean is, even though I'd taken you in by then, you didn't want anything to do with me and really I didn't..."  
  
"Want anything to do with me either," Helena put in. "I know. Made it easier for me."  
  
"Yeah and I'm sorry about that."  
  
"Don't me," Helena said with a shake of her head. "I'm not. They weren't all bad times."  
  
"I really don't want to know," Barbara laughed. "Something tells me if I knew even half of what you were doing back then I'd need a few dozen showers."  
  
Helena smirked. "Not saying you're wrong."  
  
"Nice," Barbara answered. "But we're off track again. You're very good at getting us off track."  
  
"Just now getting that eh?" Helena drawled as she reached for a bottle of water. She drained half it and then roughly wiped away the stray droplets on her chin.  
  
"Known it for awhile," Barbara admitted. "Look, all I'm saying is that what happened there, it changed you. "  
  
"Changed me how?"  
  
"I guess that's up to you to decide. I like to think it'll make you stronger?"  
  
"And if it doesn't?" Helena asked, her voice suddenly very small. "What if sometimes I don't want to get up again?"  
  
"You mean crawl?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Helena, I crawled for almost six months after I got shot. The first time I saw that chair, I told them to get it the hell out of my room. I didn't want to admit that I'd never get out of it. Just remember, in order to walk you have to crawl first."  
  
"How profound," Helena said with a half-smile.  
  
"Too much heart to heart for one day?" Barbara teased her.  
  
"Yeah a little bit," the brunette answered. "So okay, tell me there's more to this rehab thing than you sitting on my feet. When do I get to kick someone?"  
  
Barbara laughed. "I don't have that penciled in until next week."  
  
Helena groaned and fell back, hitting the mat. "I'm doomed I say, doomed."  
  
"Nah," Barbara grinned. "Just in my hands." She stopped, as if she were considering her own words. "Then again, you just might be right."  
  
Helena looked up at her. "What I'd ever do to you?"  
  
"You remember all those evenings in high school that I spent up waiting for you to get home? And then having to undress you and get you into bed?"  
  
'Yeah?" Helena muttered suspiciously.  
  
Barbara grinned, ear to ear. "Payback's a bitch."

* * *

Helena reached up and across and hugged him to her, letting the lean lines of his body press up against her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his forehead to hers. "I'm gonna miss you."  
  
"Likewise," she murmured. "Don't stay away so long."  
  
"I won't. I'll be back as soon as school is out," Tim promised her. "We'll hang."  
  
"I'm holding you to that."  
  
"No worries," he said, breaking the hug. He turned to face Dinah. "I'll be your wingman any day. You my dear are a badass."  
  
She laughed and hugged him. "Ditto. Be safe."  
  
"No worries." He glanced over at Barbara. "Bet you're glad to see me go."  
  
"You know that's not true," she replied, moving towards him.  
  
"Sure it is," he laughed. "But it's okay. I'll be back and causing trouble soon enough."  
  
"I look forward to it," Barbara replied, embracing him tightly. She kissed his cheek and ruffled his dark hair, drawing a look of annoyance from him and a snort of amusement from Helena.  
  
"We'll see if you're still saying that after I've been back for a few minutes," Tim laughed. Then he turned to Reese and offered a hand. "Good to meet you Detective."  
  
"You as well," Reese replied.  
  
"Take care of my girl. She's a special woman," Tim said, looking back at Helena. She blushed a bit at the comment causing him to widen his grin much to her chagrin.  
  
"I don't need taking care of," Helena commented, leaning heavily against the wall. Her mobility was greatly improved but she was still finding that she didn't like to be up and about too long without something to rest against.  
  
"Sure you do," Tim smirked. He winked at her, deflating the irritation he could see sparking in her eyes. "Be well Reese. You have my sympathies man."  
  
"Hey!" Helena shot, tossing a pillow from the futon at him. He ducked it and grinned. Then he waved.  
  
"Audios my friends. I'm ready Alfred."  
  
"Of course Master Tim," Alfred said with a smile. He moved towards the elevator, Tim following a few feet behind. Tim waved once more and then disappeared behind the metal doors. They closed with a quiet hiss.  
  
"Well that sucked," Dinah said, dropping down on to the futon.  
  
"He'll be back and he's way too old for you," Helena teased. Dinah opened her mouth in protest but the playful look in Helena's eyes told her it could only get worse so she decided not to go down that road. Helena turned to look at Barbara. "How about we order a pizza? There's a game on."  
  
"Wonderful," Barbara snorted. "I hate watching games with you."  
  
"Oh she can't be that bad," Reese commented as he reached out and slid an arm around Helena's waist. He pulled her down to the ground with him, settling the two of them in front of the TV. She adjusted her body so that she was sitting on her own but leaning her head against him. She wasn't sure what exactly was going on but it felt good and new. Fun and dramatic.  
  
And maybe more.  
  
But that was thought for another time. A time when the Knicks weren't taking on the Lakers.  
  
"She's that bad," Barbara replied, reaching for the phone.  
  
"Am not," Helena answered.  
  
"Are too," Dinah grinned.  
  
"Eh bite me."  
  
"Girls, no biting," Barbara said with a smirk.  
  
Dinah stuck her tongue out. "She's saying you haven't gotten your shots yet."  
  
"I'll give you a shot," Helena promised, eyes twinkling deviously.  
  
Barbara rolled her eyes, exchanging a bemused look with Reese who was flipping channels on the remote, looking for the YES network. Slowly but surely a smile spread out on her face. Her green eyes sparkled and she felt tension roll away from her shoulders.  
  
It really was over.  
  
She closed her eyes.  
  
Now they could all heal.  
  
Heal and learn to forgive and move on.  
  
Even her.  
  
Finally.  
  
And as a family.

* * *

-FIN 


End file.
